Achieved Strategies

For a leader, causing change is difficult.  For years, the statistic has been that 70% of change initiatives fail. Let’s put that into context. When a senior manager wants to improve efficiency in how insurance claims are paid, for example, it is more likely to back fire on him.  Or when a company wants to revamp its customer experience, only a margin of success is possible.  Why?

As human beings, we like familiarity.  It’s comforting. It’s reassuring. Change challenges the routines for which we’ve built predictable actions around that are reliable, at least to us.  The leader is up against a very tall challenge when she wants to rewire the way in which our days, lives, and time have been carefully and subconsciously arranged.

With the world’s constantly evolving social influences, technology advancements, global economy, and political volatility, leaders must get better at helping people navigate change.  Yet it’s a message that seems to get lost in the battle cries of shareholder value, P&L statements, sales forecasts, and so on.

Leaders must use ethical ways to shift employee beliefs to influence change, to overcome the 70% failure rate of changes to the business.  For employees to accept change, the following are seven belief changers that could help defy the daunting failure percentage rate.

1.    Understand employee groups’ perspectives. Seems to be an obvious statement.  Yet research has shown repeatedly that we believe that our perceptions interpret reality accurately.  And when something contradicts the meaning of our reality, we often reject it.  So, leaders must connect with different employee groups within the organization to listen to and learn from employees’ perceptions related to the pending change.

2.    Create a vicarious experience. One of my favorite books about change, Influence, explains the importance of this belief changer.  To help employees accept change, help them see how others in similar circumstances overcame the concerns associated with a change.

3.    Use social queues and the power of groups.  We hear how a group of people can become united in a purpose instantaneously.  Think mob mentality or groupthink.  These are dysfunctions of a group.  Yet, groups can influence and reinforce positive behavior.  Use social queues like giving back, lending a helping hand, popular opinions or attitudes, or shared information amongst networks of people to get groups of people united and in support of a change or conversations about change.

4.    Leverage Trust Account. When employees trust you, they are more open to hearing a perspective that will challenge their own.  It’s an incredible gift that cannot be taken lightly. Honor trust given and it’s returned two-fold.  Betray trust and it is taken swiftly.

5.    Tap into the intuitive.  When sharing change, the use of facts, figures, names, demands, and so on that are intuitive can help shift employee perceptions about the change’s benefit.  This belief changer requires an understanding of perceptions and a strong balance in the trust account.

6.    Facts and Figures. Not all change is complicated. Not all change requires a big shift for employees to accept it.  Let’s not overlook the use of compelling data to tell a story about why change is needed.  Use this approach carefully.  It’s overused.  I recommend using it with several other belief changers.

What’s vital about these belief changers is they are used to bring people together.  The moment a leader uses them to manipulate people to accept change employees’ BS detector will start to go off.  Resistance is then just around the corner.

It requires a little patience and observation to understand how to shift people’s beliefs about what’s changing.  It’s takes a genuine interest in helping people navigate change.  In today’s complex business world, employees must get better at responding to change.  It takes a good leader to help them do this.

Photo by gilad

So, what is your reaction to the belief changers? What would you add?