With the dawn of the AI era, many organizations see transformation and change as urgent imperatives. Getting things right and maintaining momentum are critical.
Truth be told, however, most people hate change. And I can give you a dozen reasons why.
But here’s one you probably haven’t considered: It’s genetic. As Columbia University’s Susan Levin notes, neuroscience research shows that “human brains are hardwired to resist change.” The result: “Change is often met with resistance.”
Neuroscience research also shows, as centuries of human experience have demonstrated, that resistance can be overcome: with proper communication, leadership, patience, persistence, practice, and understanding.
Overcoming resistance is just the first step. It helps get you there. Locking in change and preventing backsliding is often a greater challenge. And, again, we know why: because returning to our comfort zone is always an option, one that many people prefer.
Change Is Constant
While change is a constant in our personal and professional lives, most organizational transformations, or change programs, are seen as temporary. They have beginnings and, in most cases, ends.
That’s the first mistake leaders often make. That’s why their change initiatives lose momentum and backsliding occurs: They forget that change is an ongoing, continuous process and, as Nick South recently told the Future of Work web site, UNLEASH, one of the keys to sustaining change is changing your organization’s culture.
If done right, rather than being a sporadic on-again, off-again (and, perhaps, threatening) part of workplace life, change will be embraced as a foundational attribute of your organization’s entrepreneurial culture.
The People Side Of Change
As the nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership noted last year in a short article, “Each new change in the workplace—reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, emerging technologies, the integration of AI, personnel transitions, new organizational initiatives, and more—requires an investment of time, effort, and energy. All this change is costly—and can add up to change fatigue.”
While “many organizations focus on managing the operational or structural side of change, they give little attention or effort toward the other half of the change equation: leading the people side of change.”
A 2023 survey, conducted by Censuswide for Oak Engage, a British firm specializing in internal communications and employee engagement, confirms this. Nearly 40% of survey respondents said they lacked “awareness about the reasons for change,” 41% expressed “lack of support from or trust in leaders,” 74% said their “leaders need to be doing more to understand why people are resistant to change,” and nearly one in five (18%) said they would consider leaving their job if a big change happened at their place of work.
Preventing Backsliding
Whatever its genesis and form, organizational change should be treated as a strategic, long-term people-centered journey, rather than a one-off management initiative. To reduce resistance, hardwire progress, and prevent backsliding, leaders should do the following:
- Build the case for change. One of the reasons some 70% to 75% (or more) of all transformation initiatives fail to meet their objectives is because leaders don’t make a clear and compelling case for the change, helping employees understand how the change will benefit both the company and them.
- Engage and support your people. Many change initiatives fail because leaders don’t pay enough attention to their most important customers: their employees. The key to winning them over—making them advocates of change, rather than obstacles to change—is to communicate early, often, and honestly. Be transparent about the reasons for change. Listen to and address their concerns. This reduces anxiety, builds trust, and helps identify potential problem areas.
- Foster a culture change. Stress your organization’s adaptability and “always on” change capabilities, the central role of learning and curiosity, decentralized decision-making, and a new sense of owning the work. For change to endure—and continue—it needs to become part of the company’s DNA. To achieve that, you need to align your policies and processes, as well as your reward systems, with the new behaviors you want to reinforce.
- Model the change. Don’t be one of those “Do what I say, not what I do” kind of people. Everybody hates that (and them). Employees watch their leaders for signals about what’s really important. Leaders’ actions carry considerably more weight than their words.
- Empower your people. Define roles and responsibilities clearly and empower individuals to make key decisions without waiting for layers of approval. When people “own” progress and success they work for progress and success. Backsliding doesn’t happen here.
The Many Faces Of Change
Change, of course, comes in many shapes and styles. Sometimes it is planned, timed, choreographed, and orchestrated. But it also can be spontaneous, improvisational, accidental or even serendipitous. Even “failure,” as I recently noted, can trigger valuable changes.
None of this is new. Business history is the story of change.
Wrigley’s, for example, now a subsidiary of Mars, sold soap and baking powder at first. William Wrigley Jr., the founder’s son, gave away chewing gum to retailers as a premium. The gum—Wrigley’s Spearmint and Juicy Fruit—was more popular than the soap and the baking powder. The soap and baking powder are long-gone; the chewing gum survives and thrives.
Nintendo began life (1889) as a playing card company. Many decades later it segued into games and electronics, becoming a global phenomenon beginning in the 1970s when it started introducing such legendary video games as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Game Boy.
Amazon started out as an online bookstore (1994) and became an e-commerce juggernaut and cloud computing giant.
Slack began (2009) as an online gaming company, Tiny Speck; the game (“Glitch”) failed, but internal communication tools built for the failed game became the workplace communication software many of us now use. Slack.
YouTube started off (2005) as an online dating site (“Tune In, Hook Up”) and took off as the now-omnipresent video-sharing platform.
Change happens. You need to help your people embrace it, and enjoy the ride.