Involve those affected by change

Description

In order to increase the likelihood of successful change, leaders engage those affected by the change and also those stakeholders with critical perspectives, data and understanding of the current context. The aim is to increase the quality of the intended changes and reduce the resistance by avoiding imposing change on underinformed and underinvolved people.

Significant collateral benefits include increased trust, Psychological Safety and staff empowerment.

Rationale

A quote by Leo Tolstoy sums up the challenge of change quite nicely: “Everybody wants change, nobody wants to be changed”.

Human systems are inherently stable as behavioural norms are at a group level, along with a preference for the status quo, which makes them hard to change from the perspective of a single change agent. The reactions to an impending change are generally fearful due to a perception of loss of control and a natural fear of the unknown. The result tends to be emotional reactions and resistance before a change even starts.

To counter this fear, leaders should ensure:

• There is good motivation for the change, and it is shared by the people impacted.
• People have input and are involved rather than victims
• Generate options for change collaboratively
• Frame changes as experiments to run and then learn from
• Explore, understand and address sources of fear

Many change initiatives are designed by senior stakeholders who have useful but high-level perspectives. When changes are enacted, they suffer from poor assumptions and can often be mistargeted.

By genuinely engaging broadly and collaboratively with those in the areas impacted by the potential change, the changes are better informed and more likely to be supported and successful. Genuine engagement would look like meaningful consideration of perspectives and suggestions rather than just being sold to. Engaging more broadly enables more perspectives, data, and understanding to be fed into the process of identifying more appropriate improvement areas and change options.

Related Principles

• Evolutionary over revolutionary change
• Foster a high trust environment
• Maximise engagement
• Catalyst for change
• Shared context improves decisions

Related Practices

• Self-selecting teams (Fahmy, n.d., #)
• Open Space Agility (Mezick, 2015, #)
• Host Leadership (McKergow & Bailey, n.d., #)
• Invitational Leadership
• Ground Conditions for successful change - Margaret Wheatley
• Liberating Structures