The Change Resistors: Leadership Pitfalls

Today in Change Resistors we’ll tackle some common leadership pitfalls. These behaviors cause leaders to underestimate the impact of change or inaccurately set organizational expectations.

Skimming the Benefits

An organization is a complex system. Change in one area has a habit of cascading through many areas, requiring you to adopt a holistic approach. 

As we discussed in Leadership’s Resolve, if you’re not prepared to tackle the tough problems – all of them – reframe your effort to match your resolve or abandon it altogether.

Some common problems from which leadership shies away include:

• Aligning incentives
• Defining new metrics (abandoning ones that are no longer relevant)
• Addressing personnel issues in a timely and appropriate fashion 

Scaling down the impact (time, resources, reach) will result in a scaled down benefit or, depending upon how realistically it’s done, no benefits at all.

Leaving a Hole

When change efforts remove or minimize organizational traditions or values you must plan to fill the void. What are the new values? What are the new stories and traditions?  

These replacements must have meaning in order to minimize resistance. They must be:

• Consistently demonstrated
• Communicated and rewarded
• Of equal significance to what they’ve replaced

Competing Demands

When people are learning to do their jobs in new ways everything takes more time. If deadlines can’t move then you may want to add resources. If possible, implement change during off-peak business cycles. 

When that’s not possible, frequent, clear, two-way communication can help set expectations about the benefits and burdens of the plan. Be honest!

Remember that recognition and incentives can go a long way in showing participants that their extra effort is appreciated and vital to the company’s success. 

Previous Posts in this series:

A Collaborative Series, Outline (updated today), Culture, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Passive-Aggressive Behavior, Decision Avoidance, Snipers, Skeptics, Leadership’s Resolve, Brain Based?, Me and You

Next week we’ll discuss process issues that impede change and then we’ll end the series with a summary of some general principles.

Technorati tags: Business, Change Resistors, Change Management, Change Pitfalls

Comments

[ann michael]

Interesting - that quote is in my email signature and I've always seen it attributed to Charles Darwin. I love the quote!

[noemi sanchez]

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." - Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher

[ann michael]

Interestingly, the series will likely end on the note that we're all change resistors at one time or another - it just depends on the change and where it fits in our values and priorities. If more leaders were learners and the hierarchy of traditional corporations was suspended for a bit - at least through the point where the impact of the change was assessed - I think there would be a lot more successful changes out there!

[Ellen Weber]

Great post Ann, and I was especially interested in the competing demands... which seems like a black hole for good ideas to get lost. Nice solutions! I like to see a two-way communication where leaders are also learners and where leaders lead at times. What do you think?