Debunking Organizational Change Myths & Avoiding The Landmines ~ Learn How to Successfully Approach Cultural/Organizational Change

A thousand “thank you’s” to the blog reader who commented “Great Cultural/Organizational Change Parts I and II advice, and I’m really looking forward to Part III, but my organization doesn’t even get the basic need to develop an Organizational Change Management (OCM) plan! Help!” Let’s rewind and start at the very beginning! The question of the day ~ why and when is Cultural/Organizational Change Management both relevant plus imperative?

I cringe when I think back to the times that I’ve seen organizations, leaders and teams dive head first into the “next big change” deep end of the pool. Hyped up by all of the “this is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread” internal and external sales pitches, and driven by enthusiasm (or trepidation of not joining ranks with their fellow leaders, teams and peers who are forging ahead), they blindly chart their trajectory, calculate their velocity and make that grand leap without having first assessed the water level. In mid air, all seems great until reality strikes, or in this case, their head suddenly crashes on the bottom of the pool and sends them into that surreal state where everything seems to be spinning out of control. What just happened that suddenly created unanticipated, unexpected, unwanted reverberations that spread far and wide within a surprisingly short period of time? Unplanned change! So what types of change can cause organizational havoc?

Let’s first define the word “change” with the help of Merriam-Webster Online:

Without a doubt, the above definition covers a broad spectrum. How does this translate into the day-to-day? Change could look like the introduction of a new leader, idea, philosophy, culture, policy, decision, strategy, directive, goal, structure (including reorganizations, layoffs, mergers, acquisitions), responsibility, process, procedure, tool, technology, application, system, physical surrounding or any number of scenarios that ‘could’ or ‘would’ cause either the entire organization or some subset of the organization to alter how they currently think and/or behave. Herein lies the key to the question “why manage organizational change?” MYTH #1: Many believe that people don’t like change in general, so change train wrecks, although painful, are quite normal. Based on my 25+ years of organizational change observations plus experiences, I see the world differently. I’ve witnessed both train wrecks and amazing success stories. My conclusion is that people don’t like change when:

Let’s think about it. If I’m promoted into a new role with new increased responsibilities, I would be a-ok with that change! Why? Because I don’t perceive the change as being detrimental, there’s a personal payback and a promotion screams “I’m valuable!” It’s all in how the change is perceived by those being directly or indirectly impacted by the change. Unfortunately change initiators oftentimes lose sight of the ‘perception factor.’ As a change initiator, I may be able to quote 10 reasons why a change is necessary, 16 reasons why it will benefit the organization and another 13 reasons why life will become nirvana. But…if I’m sharing my rationale from the organization’s (or my own) vantage point vs. from the vantage point of my audience (those impacted by the change), I’ve totally missed the mark!

If organizational change is not thoughtfully and carefully orchestrated and socialized at the onset, and by that I mean, people-related (human behavior) implications and risks are thoroughly anticipated, identified, considered, discussed and addressed and those who will be impacted by the change (either directly or indirectly) are engaged as soon as reasonably possible in the initial organizational change dialogue plus planning phase activities, I 100% guarantee, without a doubt, that rebellion will occur. What does rebellion look like? It looks like fight or flee mode, both of which are destructive and can quickly derail change initiatives. While some fighters and flee’ers (sorry, I know this isn’t a word, but it gets the point across) are vocal, most are not. They operate in subtle and sometimes undetected ways, slowly and continuously stirring the pot, building up change resistance. Although I always prefer to be engaged at the front end of change because I can help organizations accelerate end goal achievement by avoiding the usual landmines, I’m oftentimes engaged during the midst of or at the tail end of a change gone horribly wrong. As I’m working with my clients to ‘right the change ship’, which includes interviewing those either directly or indirectly impacted by the change, I typically hear these comments:   

The irony ~ many organizations claim that their people are their greatest assets, yet these same organizations don’t understand the need to ’get into their peoples’ heads’, see the world from their perspective, anticipate their reactions and help them work through change as early in the process as possible. MYTH #2: In fact some organizations subscribe to the perplexing ‘barking orders’ myth ~ if I pound my fist on the table loud enough, shout “just get it done”, and force the change through, it will magically happen. When the human factor is grossly or even moderately underestimated, organizations are willfully pulling the trigger and shooting themselves in the foot. As a result, they can expect employee disengagement and disenfranchisement plus costly change deployment and benefit realization delays. As the old adage goes “pay me now or pay me later.” With the right, upfront OCM planning and all that goes with that, even the most complex changes can be effectively introduced, socialized and adopted. And the great news ~ the proverbial train wreck can actually be avoided! But taking OCM shortcuts will most certainly result in a change resistance groundswell, the magnitude of which some organizations may never fully recover from depending on the breadth and depth of the change and the ensuing organizational ‘credibility hit’ from change gone bad.

Interested in learning more about how to successfully approach change? Check out our Cultural/Organizational Change multi-part series starting with Part I!