Change! So much joy, so much pain. Busting some myths about Change
We all know the drill. Here comes Change! Everyone wants it, it’s exciting and new! It is a good idea, Change, but not always when done to me..
As you sit there in the Change House (ref below), in your room of contentment thinking that everything is dandy and you don’t need to fix what’s not broke, you’re suddenly exposed to Change. This different, new “thing”, that challenges how you go about minding your own business. As a consequence of Change, you start moving around the Change House. First you spend some time in the room of denial. You understand that something is up, but it doesn’t have anything to do with you…does it? Then, you realise that this Change most certainly has to do with you, and you’re not allowed to go about minding your own business anymore. Change is requiring something of you, but you don’t understand what. So, you move to the Confusion Room, only to realise that you don’t find the solution here either and you risk going down into the Basement. There are two rooms in the Basement, by the way, the Dungeon of Denial and the Pit of Paralysis. These are not good places to be, not even if you manage to hide from Change for a while. After a (long or short) while, you start to realise (with or without help) that the Quality of the solution or decision that brought Change is good. You start to become a bit more optimistic and, for some reason, you even start to feel enthusiastic about Change. You start to get Engaged in Change and you move to the Renewal Room. You feel Energised, ready to adopt Change and bring it into your Contentment Room… only to find that yet another Change is lurking behind the door, keeping you away from the sun deck.
Many of you have heard about the basic change equation, Q x E = C.
The equation tells us that the Change is a product of the Quality of the solution or decision we want to implement, multiplied by the Engagement and ownership you can create around that specific solution or decision.
All successful change projects have both a high Q and a high E, indicating that both parts of the equation are equally important. However..
..if the formula to succeed with change is as easy as Q x E = C, why do we so often fail to make Change stick?
It is a paradox that the phrase “70 % of organizational change projects fail” has gotten such a big hold of the truth in change management. It has been used for decades to illustrate the importance of managing change properly, because if you do not, the failure rate is 70%. However, if that were true, why would any leader take the risk of embarking on a change journey, if the risk of failing is so high? I certainly wouldn’t! According to the Oxford Review (se ref 2 below), it is not even true (see also ref 3 below). After doing a deep dive into the research on the subject, they found that the more likely failure rate is about 6%. That doesn’t sound so bad. It could indicate that 94 % of organisational change processes actually succeed!
If we go back to the story of the Change House, it also makes an important assumption: that everyone is content with the current situation - and that when we’re exposed to change our first reaction is to resist it (the Room of Denial). This is deeply rooted in in our biology, where in antiquity any change was a possible threat to our existence. Normally, it is hard to avoid this instinct. However, there is probably significant variation in how much time different individuals need to spend in the different rooms of the Change House before they reach the Room of Renewal. We would also argue that in modern society, the Change House is lacking a very vital element. We have called it the Mezzanine of Discontent. Not all employees are necessarily happy with the status quo. Some would actually like to see Change happen, they are just waiting for it to come knocking so they can embrace it!
The original Change House by Clase Janssen, renovated with a Mezzanine of Discontent by PeoplewithE
So, what are we actually talking about then, if in most cases the actual change is a success, and many employees are not necessarily happy with the status quo?
Often, the Change is in fact implemented. You go from one IT system to another; you change the organisational structure, successfully update the organisational chart and hand out new job descriptions. But behind the scenes, the struggle is real. The people have accepted the Change, but they have not moved to the Renewal Room. Some stay in the Denial Room, minding their own business, doing what they have always done. Others cannot manage to get out of the Confusion Room, even though they see things changing around them. As an organisation, you may have successfully completed the Change, but you have not managed to make Change stick and get the return on investment that you expected when embarking on the Change journey.
So, back to the equation! What might come as a surprise, is that most unsuccessful change projects actually had a high Q! The system or decision was actually good! This makes perfect sense. You would probably never go ahead with for example an organisational change if you didn’t believe in the solution. This is also normally where we put the effort. We take the time to ensure that the solution or decision is of such high quality that the return on investment is also likely to be high.
Our experience is that the change normally tends to make sense from a rational point of view. So why do so many change efforts cause so much noise in an organisation? We could argue that it is because too little time is invested in securing the Engagement and buy-in of the organization. Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter nailed it with this statement: “Change is a threat when done to me, but an opportunity when done by me”. This means that if you want change to stick, you need to make sure that your people have bought into the solution or decision, so that they can move through the Change House effectively, and get to the Contentment Room renewed, with a different approach, that provides better results.
For illustration purposes, let’s say the Quality of the decision was quite good, e.g. 85 %, but that the Engagement was “only” 55 % we get the following:
You are not even halfway there!
It is fair to say that a lot of energy and effort should be invested in building up a strong E!
But what is actually the content of this E? How do you make sure that you create change with Engagement and Enthusiasm?
If we build on the presented change formula, we can add a new rendition:
E = f(V x U x B x A) > C
This formula tells us that (E) Engagement in a change setting is a function (f) of several important elements and trade-offs:
(V) Vision. A co-created compelling picture of what success looks like. People do not “buy in” to a picture of what success looks like – they create it. It must be clear what the compelling future is.
(U) Unsatisfaction with current state. It is very difficult to change something that actually works well, and that people are very satisfied with. If this is the case you need to clearly address the three WHYs: Why this change?…Why this way?...and Why now?
(B) Belief. Belief that we can do it. Also a belief that the leaders are convinced that it should be done. The rationale for change needs to be explained, and it needs to speak to both hearts and minds.
(A) An Action Plan that is realistic and believable, and, importantly, with concrete first actionable steps. And Actions clearly linked to the future we are trying to co-create.
The product of these four elements creates a drive to change. If one of the four is zero, the product is zero. On the other side, there is a trade-off though: the product of the E has to be bigger than the (C) Cost of the Change.
PeoplewithE: Inspiring Leadership & Change
But back to the question: why do we so often fail to make change stick? The answer to the question is fairly simple: when you think you are done with the change, that’s when the hard work begins! You need to maintain the high E on a day-to-day basis. Following your people on their journey through the Change House, providing support and clarity for them to move to the Renewal Room, daring to let go of old habits and ways of working. Hopefully, more robust and ready for the next Change that will come knocking on the door…
1 https://fourroomsofchange.com/about/background-and-theory/ (Janssen, Claes)
2 https://oxford-review.com/do-70-of-organizational-change-projects-really-fail-video/ (Wilkinson, Day)
3 ‘Organisational Change and Leadership: Out of the Quagmire’. Rune T. By, Journal of Change Management, vol 20, no 1, 2020