What makes organizational change hard?

Sometimes, swapping a toping on your oatmeal is hard. Other times, moving countries or quitting cigarettes happens without a blink. Conversely, a business can migrate to a new ERP in just few months, but it can also take as long to decide on a new office printer supplier. What makes one change more palatable then the other?

A couple from my close surrounding recently decided to go on a diet. Paul wanted to fit in a suit for a wedding and Angie needed to lose some baby weight. They decided to make the same changes — sleep and move more, minimize processed and focus on whole food. She succeeded, he didn’t. Why? They live in the same house, eat from the same fridge and pretty much share the same lifestyle. Yet, she embraced the change and ran with it whilst he procrastinated and then when he finally did start, he simply couldn’t stick to it consistently. What made the difference?

In essence, the answer is very simple: they are different people with different characters that were formed over years through different experiences, circumstances, motivation, beliefs. Differences in backgrounds and individual present contexts form a filter through which we perceive the world, set our expectations and chose to embrace or reject a change. Angie lived in four different countries, had a high-profile job with a lot of responsibility, couple of hobbies and has dieted before. Paul on the other hand, had a stable life progression path with very little adversity which made him more sensitive to change. Therefore shifting lifestyle overnight came more naturally to Angie, whilst the bare thought of it led Paul to fear and procrastination so that “the” Monday never came.

When faced with a change, the unknown, we subconsciously start scaling it — how big and impactful it is going to be. Since there is no way to accurately evaluate this, we are basically fortune telling based on the available information and our personal context, our past experiences that formed our character. Once we have an idea of what the change may mean for us, we decide how (un)comfortable will that be and whether we are able and willing to tolerate it or not in a given moment. Ultimately, this will lead us to a reaction — we push back, ignore or accept the change. So, in summary, how we will react to a change and how successful will we be implementing it comes down to our characters and all those events that shaped it.

There are two reasons why is this relevant from the perspective of an organization. The first reason is that the mechanism is the same: corporate character, or organizational culture, is a sum of corporate history, values, aspirations. That later influences how the organization perceives a change and behaves when facing it. This is why change agents get more of “this is a bad idea”, “it will never work”, “we tried this before”, “you don’t understand our business” in some organizations and less in others.

The second reason why the above change motivation process is relevant from an organizational standpoint is because all organizations are composed of individuals. Logical reasoning implies that what is true at Paul and Angie’s level must be true for an organization too, which is partially correct. However, organizations are not pure “sums” of individual biases for change, there is an effect of synergy — leadership and peer pressure can amplify individual reaction to change in both positive and negative directions.

Imagine a traditional functional organizational structure, with authoritarian leadership in a mature industry where there has been little change both endogenously and exogenously for decades. Having little to no experience encountering and driving change, we can assume that one such organization would have low tolerance to smallest alteration. A new starter, enthusiastic about improvements and eager to leave a mark would encounter many obstacles, reduce number of attempts over time and eventually settle into the organizational culture.

Capacity of an organization to successfully drive and manage change strongly depends on its culture, its leadership and the framework in which it operates. Therefore the only long-term way to achieve an agile organization capable to effectively manage, initiate and react to change is to change its culture. In other words, to create an atmosphere, a context, where change is normalized. However, shifts in corporate culture take time and above all, hiring the right leaders who will drive it and set examples with their own behaviour.

In the meantime, organizational appetite for change can be increased by simplifying change management process, encouraging change initiatives and then driving employee’s attention to positive outcomes of small changes their peers put in place. More of those, better the experience with change and lower expected discomfort in the future. That increases tolerance and appetite for change within the organization. Long term, in such way we create a strategy-driven, flexible organization capable of effectively facing adversity and ensuring long term sustainability.

Would you agree?