People who are passionate about change usually start with answers. They have a solution to a problem they are enthusiastic about and are excited to implement it. Questions usually revolve around communication. They want to make people aware of their idea and give them the knowledge and understanding to make good use of it.
That’s why change management consultants tell us to to start by building awareness, desire and knowledge before moving on to training to provide people with the ability to implement change. They assume that if people just understand the idea, they will embrace it. That’s almost never true and it usually doesn’t end well.
The truth is that a big awareness campaign is likely to trigger those who hate the idea to immediately start working to undermine what you’re trying to achieve in order to kill it before it even starts. To bring genuine transformation about you need to see the world as it really is and ask yourself hard questions. Here are three that you’ll want to start with:
1. Where Will Resistance Come From?
Probably the greatest misconception about change is that it’s about persuasion. This often manifests itself in what’s known as the information deficit model. Practitioners assume that if others had the same information that they did, that they would hold similar opinions. Yet decades of research show that’s a false assumption. The world simply doesn’t work that way.
What the evidence does show is that shifts in knowledge and attitudes don’t necessarily result in a change in practice. We might know that we shouldn’t eat the brownie, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t. In a similar vein, there is a well documented knowing-doing gap in organizations in which executives are fully aware of best practices but don’t implement them.
There’s also just something arrogant about assuming that the reason someone doesn’t agree with you is some lack of knowledge or understanding on their part. The truth is that you first need to create a sense of safety around the change conversation and that means listening to how others see things, rather than trying to force what you think on them.
You can’t simply cheerlead change. Whenever you ask people to change what they think or what they do, there will always be some who won’t like it, not for any rational logic, necessarily, but because of reasons related to identity, dignity and sense of self. They will work to undermine you in ways that are dishonest, underhanded and deceptive.
That’s why when we work with organizations on a transformational initiative, one of the first things we do is a resistance inventory: Who will resist? What form will that resistance take? What can we do to mitigate it? You can’t anticipate everything, but with a little planning, you can develop strategies to overcome even the most irrational, virulent resistance.
2. What Supports The Status Quo?
The story of Blockbuster video is one that is often repeated, but rarely understood. The CEO, John Antioco, did not, as is frequently assumed, ignore the Netflix threat but devised an effective strategy to meet it head on. However, tensions with shareholders eventually boiled over, a salary dispute led him to resign and the strategy was abandoned. Antioco’s mistake wasn’t a lack of a market strategy, but a lack of a resistance strategy.
In a similar vein, Dell Computer’s direct model was a simple idea and a clear competitive advantage, but none of the incumbent industry giants, such as Compaq and HP, were able to adopt it. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The advantages of Dell’s model were highly publicized and well known. Each company had initiatives to emulate it.
We tend to see change as an engineering problem. There is a desired end state, so we design a logical strategy to achieve it, build a timeline and execute the plan. We expect some obstacles along the way, work to identify sticking points and maybe even devise some plans to address them. Surely, with some will and determination, we can push through.
Yet that’s not how the world really works. The status quo always has inertia on its side and never yields its power gracefully. It has had years—and sometimes decades or longer—to build connections and form networks. If we are to achieve genuine transformation, it’s that underlying ecosystem we need to address.
What’s key is to understand that the status quo has sources of power keeping it in place and those sources of power have an institutional basis. These institutions form pillars that support the current state. If you are going to bring about genuine change, that’s what your strategy needs to focus on.
3. Where Will You Start?
Managers launching a new initiative often seek to start with a bang. They work to gain approval for a sizable budget as a sign of institutional commitment. They recruit high-profile executives, arrange a big “kick-off” meeting and look to move fast, gain scale and generate some quick wins. All of this is designed to create a sense of urgency and inevitability.
But this kind of high-profile kickoff can easily backfire. The problem is that this approach puts your most committed opponents on alert. Any time you propose meaningful change, some people will see it as a threat—to their role, identity, or influence. A big, visible launch gives them time to mobilize resistance before your initiative has a chance to take hold.
One thing we know from decades of research is that change follows an s-curve, meaning that it starts slowly and, if it gains traction, grows toward a tipping point around 10%-20% participation that unlocks a cascade, which triggers exponential acceleration. You don’t have to bring in everybody at once, but whether you ever reach that tipping point will determine whether you succeed or fail.
That’s why in my book Cascades, I advised to start with a Keystone Change, which represents a clear and tangible objective, involves multiple stakeholders and paves the way for future change. To do that, we start small, shrinking the challenge down to a single team, product or process. We need to show that the change can work, somewhere, before moving forward.
What’s important is that you go to where the energy is, not try to create or maintain it by yourself. Resist the urge to persuade skeptics. Your job isn’t to win the argument, but gain adoption. Go out and find those who are enthusiastic about change, who want it to work and will not only work to bring it about, but bring in others who can bring in others still.
Nothing Slows You Down More Than Failure
To lead change you have to believe in it. You have to be optimistic and overcome doubts—your own and those of others. So it’s understandable that you want to make sure you have all the answers going in. Unfortunately that’s an unrealistic expectation. Change is inherently unpredictable and nobody has all the answers.
But what you can do is ask good questions: Who will resist change and why? What are the sources of power that support the status quo and how can you influence them? Where should you start and who should you start with? These are tough questions without clear or simple answers, but you have to continually ask them.
What you definitely don’t want to do is just make a plan and move forward on a timeline, hell or high water. That’s a sure path to misery and defeat. The truth is that nothing slows you down more than failure, so you want to move forward deliberately, learning as you go, and building traction and strength as you progress. Change is nonlinear, you accelerate over time.
Pixar’s Ed Catmull described new ideas as “ugly babies” because they start out “awkward and unformed, vulnerable and incomplete.” “Originality is fragile,” he wrote. “The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends… Our job is to protect our babies from being judged too quickly. Our job is to protect the new.”
To take the metaphor a bit further, what you don’t want to do is take your ugly baby down to a biker bar and just let it get wailed on. Yet there’s something about human nature that, when we feel passionately about an idea, we want to convince the skeptics. We want to put the idea in front of exactly the people who hate it most and try to show that we’re right.
Don’t do that. Protect the baby. Start by asking the right questions.
Greg Satell is Co-Founder of ChangeOS, a transformation & change advisory, an international keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change. His previous effort, Mapping Innovation, was selected as one of the best business books of 2017. You can learn more about Greg on his website, GregSatell.com, follow him on Twitter @DigitalTonto, his YouTube Channel and connect on LinkedIn.
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