How to Facilitate Change: Part 1

• The process was great five years ago, but it’s clearly inefficient today.

• The tool was really good when it was first purchased, but now it’s outdated.

• Our competitors have figured out a better way of doing things.

There are countless reasons why change can become necessary - why it can be in the company’s best interest.

But people are naturally resistant to change. And that’s why, even with the best of intentions, change can fail to take hold.

So what’s the secret? How do you make it work?

Like with most important things, there’s a lot that goes into it. There’s not one simple, single answer to that question.

In this multi-part newsletter, I want to explore some of the key practices that lead to successful organisational change.

But first, a quick word from this week’s sponsor:

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1. Start by listening.

In large companies, big decisions tend to be made at the top of the org chart, and cascaded down until they reach the people who are ultimately going to be most affected by the changes.

This can lead to big problems if there’s no direct line of communication between the people “ordering” the change and those expected to implement it.

Here, listening is critical.

In my experience, when people are skeptical about an upcoming change, they usually have good reason to be.

For instance: fundamental issues are not being addressed, critical process steps or functionality is missing, etc.

Those kinds of problems typically occur when the person deciding the change hasn’t ever worked in or spoken to people in the roles that get affected.

And let’s be honest: How can anyone presume to know what is best for a for a large group of people with whom they’ve never interacted?

It can be so valuable to loop in some of those key stakeholders early on in the decision making process: get their feedback, learn what kind of hurdles your proposed solution may face before choosing if and how to invest in it. Ensure that it can be successful and that it is indeed the best way forward.

Too often do we act purely on instinct, when plenty of insight and information is available around us to help us make informed decisions. But we need to look, and we need to ask for that information. And that’s why successful and positive organisational change begins with this simple step: listening.

Listening means conducting interviews with key users or people in roles that will be affected by the new process/ tool/ etc.

It means taking the time to understand how your stakeholders currently go about their jobs: What are their critical requirements? What are their dependencies? What are they saying that they need most of all to achieve their objectives?

Once you have a good understanding of your stakeholder’s needs, challenges and current ways of working, you’ll be far better placed to deliver positive and lasting organisational change that people will be glad to adopt.

That’s it for this first part!

What did you think? Should I follow up in the next newsletter with more operational details such as discussing user segments, use cases, training and kick-off strategy and more like that?

Or should I cut this topic short and move on to something different? Let me know by answering the poll below!