Tag: agreement

How to create more buy-in

Change which is ignited by motivated employees goes better and faster than change which is ‘imposed’. How can you tap into the intrinsic motivation of your employees so that it matches the ambition or priorities of the organization?

Support base
Lack of support is one of most the important causes of frictions that hinder change. Differences in understanding of priorities exist between management and teams (in 40% of the cases, see graph) and within teams (70%). They lead to resistance. How can you convert that into support?

Source: dissertation by Dr. J.M. van de Poll,
Ambition Patterns in Strategic Decision-Making.

The trench of one’s own right
We live in a highly opinionated society with an abundance of information. We only need a little information to form our opinion and we are strongly inclined to hold on to it.

We have all experienced it: you have a discussion about a problem and you are convinced of your opinion. But… the better you put forward your arguments and supporting facts, the harder your conversation partner seems to cling to his or her conviction. Instead of coming together, it seems that everyone is digging themselves in the trench of their own right.

Trying to convince others of your opinion often leads to more resistance and controversy

Persuasion leads to resistance
This is a well-known phenomenon in clinical psychology: people are well aware of their behavior – and the improvement it needs – but when you want to convince them that they have to change, resistance arises. What if we don’t try to convince others but instead let people find the motivation to change themselves?

Change by listening
That’s exactly what motivational interviewing is about: it’s a technique, developed by Bill Miller and Stephen Rollnick1, that originated in addiction treatment.

1 Motivational interviewing: helping people change, William R. Miller en Stephen Rollnick, third edition, 2013

In motivational interviewing, the interviewer – or: the manager, the colleague, the parent, the coach… – mainly asks questions and listens, with the aim of finding out what would motivate someone to change. Not by telling people what to do, but by letting them discover alternatives themselves2.

2 The results of this method of interviewing in mental health care are good: 75% of the studies on this method report positive results and psychologists and doctors who use it report a success rate of 80%. Source: Think again: the power of knowing what you don’t know, Adam Grant, 2021, page 149. 

Suppose a manager has an employee on his team who often delivers his work too late. That is annoying for colleagues because they depend on it. The manager would like the employee to plan his work better so that the team can rely more on him. When the manager tries to convince him to change his behavior, the start of the conversation could go like this:

Manager: I notice that you often deliver your work late. You need to plan your work better.
Employee: Oh, what’s wrong with it?
Manager: The people who depend on your numbers get in trouble if you deliver late. They must be able to rely on you to keep your promises.
Employee: Well, I keep my promises allright…
Manager: But your numbers are often too late.
Employee: If different things are asked of me all the time, it becomes difficult to keep everyone happy.

This does not seem to be going in a direction that leads to motivation and agreement. What if the manager is eager to find out what would motivate the employee to organize his work differently? That conversation could go like this:

Manager: Could you explain to me how you plan your work?
Employee: Of every request that comes in, I note when it has to be finished.
Manager: So you have a good overview of all deadlines?
Employee: Yes.
Manager: And that works well?
Employee: The problem is that people come up with additional questions very often. As a result, I lose the overview and some activities will be delayed.
Manager: I understand that’s difficult. What could you do to keep the overview and meet the expectations of your colleagues?
Employee: I could schedule activities for each deadline and stick to it more closely when new requests come in.

Now an open conversation arises in which the manager understands the nature of the problem better – ‘planning’ is not so much the problem, but what the employee does when shifts occur. The employee, in turn, feels safe to think along about changing his behaviour. Now the door opens to a structural solution.

Change from within
Motivational interviewing enables the other person to find his or her motivation for change. Such motivation is always stronger than when behavioral change is imposed. It also leads to greater mutual understanding and support. It enables you and your team to become more responsive because dilemmas and problems are solved faster and more effectively, with more creativity and in greater harmony.

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A common cause of resistance

Organizations want to adapt to changing circumstances. They think about how they want to do things differently and what need to adjust. For example in behavior and/or in the way in which the work is organized.

On to the future
Most organizations therefore change very consciously. TheIr plans are well thought out. Decision-making is thorough and all stakeholders are consulted. “Clearly, if we keep doing our job the same way, we won’t get better results. So on to the future!”

Motivate
Careful work is also done during implementation. Everything is done to take people along: why is this initiative important? What do we want to achieve with it? What happens if we do nothing? And what does this mean for you and your department? An internal communication campaign often follows. Which explains what needs to be changed and why. This mainly aims to involve and motivate people.

Lack of support
In the blog “Why Change Management Often Fails” we saw that there is often less support than people think: in no less than 70% of the cases, teams do not agree with the goals of their management.

So often there is too much resistance. It turns out to be difficult to resolve such resistance and to take those involved along for the good cause of the change. Even people who agree with the goals turn out to be resistant to get moving. For example, because there is insufficient support for the way in which the change will be implemented. Is that sheer unwillingness or is there something else going on?

Too much future…
Recently I had a conversation with two board members of a medium-sized company. The organization is in the midst of a change process. During the conversation, the persistent resistance in the organization came up, especially among middle managers. The situation turned out to be very similar to what is described above.

We considered the possible causes of this resistance for a while. A lot of time and effort had been invested in creating understanding and involving employees. At one point the CEO sighed: “Maybe the problem is that we talk way too much about that bright future.”

… and too little past
Then the insight fell like a quarter in a jukebox: in another blog we discussed that “recognition of the past” – such as: good and bad events, successes and failures – is a systemic need in all teams and organizations.

The need for recognition
After all, “wanting to be seen”, or “recognition”, is an important social need. People and teams want to “belong”. When they do not experience that, resistance emerges as a symptom of imbalance.

The shoulders of the past
Most changes usually start with a good vision and solid arguments. What often does not receive enough recognition is that the current position of the organization has been built on the (successful) past so far. Without “the shoulders of the past,” there is little to stand on. Recognition and appreciation of the contribution of committed employees are essential for taking the step towards the future.

Motivation and energy
It pays to make sure employees are seen and recognized for their contributions. Once they feel understood and appreciated, an important cause of resistance is removed: they feel that they belong and are relevant for the future. That motivates and gives energy.

There can be other causes of resistance of course. For example, fear of losing a job. Or the concern that people cannot “come along”. It is essential to ensure that people experience that leadership understands and acknowledges their feelings. Until that happens, resistance cannot be resolved. No matter how good the other actions of management are. Then the change is force-fed. Such change is slow, laborious and fatiguing for everyone involved.

Understand the root cause
Resolving resistance is only possible if management understands its root cause. And that is never actually in something rational (the reason for change). It is usually the result of employees who do not feel understood, seen or heard. Whether it is in their value to the organization, their concerns or fears for the future. This can even be traced back to previous changes or reorganizations – and may have little or nothing to do with the situation now.

Understanding the root cause of resistance and tackling it takes time. But that does result in change that people feel motivated to contribute to. Such time therefore is a valuable investment. The return consists of people who are better connected with each other and engaged with their organization. Change is therefore faster and better than a change which is force-fed. Moreover, it is also much more fun.

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Why change management often fails

Responsive organizations are better able to adapt successfully or anticipate developments in their environment. If you want build such an organization, it is important to understand why conventional change management often fails, as we discussed in one of our other blogs.

Organize for succes
In many change projects, companies do not organize well enough for success. By that we do not mean organization charts, KPI’s, reporting lines or meeting schedules. These are usually well in place. Maybe sometimes a little too much.

Many companies do not adequately tap into the human ability to change.

No, we mean that the plans take insufficient account of people and their  relationships. For example: are people energized by the company’s strategy or change plan? Does everyone do what he or she wants to do – and does that match their abilities? Is there sufficient agreement – or ‘buy-in’ – on the goals and priorities? Is there enough focus, or is the number of priorities so great that no focus is possible? And do the teams involved have sufficient capacity to realize the change? 

Friction
Common sense tells us, that agreement, focus and capacity are prerequisites for successful change. And it is clear that, when these factors are not addressed well in the process there will be too much friction. Friction exists within organizations as well as between organizations and their environment. A certain amount of friction is good – it leads to resolutions and innovations. But too much of it creates resistance, frustration and lack of progress. This is the case in the far majority of change initiatives. It prevents companies to tap into the human ability to (contribute to) change.

Understand blockages to change
This was demonstrated by the Artificial Intelligence specialists of Praioritize, led by Dr. J.M. van de Poll (See: van de Poll, J. M. (2018). Ambition patterns in strategic decision-making). They have conducted a global study among more than 4.000 teams. Part of the study was to find out how teams score on the factors of agreement, focus and capacity to change. The results are quite revealing.

Agreement
On the one hand the study measured the agreement among the teams of the respondents with regard to their priorities (from low to high). On the other hand the study measured the teams’ agreement with the objectives that were set by upper management (low to high):

Most teams have insufficient agreement on priorities

Seventy percent of the 4.000 teams does not agree with the company’s objectives (!), and 40% of the teams do not agree among themselves. How will that bring about coherence in the organization?

Ambitions
Another factor that was measured was the ambition or focus level of the teams. For this, the study looked at the number of priorities the team wanted to improve (the width of improvement) and by how much they wanted to improve them (the depth). Again, the results of the study offer a surprising insight:

Most teams choose too many priorities in change projects

Only 3% the teams have a clear overview of a limited number of improvement points that they want to improve significantly – on the road to progress. The other 97% of teams either pile too much on their plate – wanting to improve too much at the same time or they have no ambition (improve a few points just a little).

Effort
An organization could agree on highly ambitious objectives, but what if the organization is not up to the required effort? The next image illustrates that only in 20% of the teams, the team can easily meet the required effort. In the other 80%, the effort is either (too) high or unevenly distributed among team member:

The effort required for teams is usually (too) high, or not evenly distributed among team members

Capacity
Last but certainly not least: we could all agree that there must be capacity to change in the team. Capacity can be defined along two dimensions: two what extent are people working on non-priorities and to what extent are they already scoring the objective on actual priorities? As with agreement, focus and effort, the research has revealed that the majority of teams has the tendency to ‘bite off more than they can chew’:

Capacity is another factor in change management that is generally overlooked

Take the basics into account…
Change is hard when there is lack of consensus and lack of focus. It is also hard when there is consensus and focus, but the required effort is unevenly divided among the team or does not match the capacity of the organization at all. As the results of the Praioritize study demonstrate, the far majority of change programs start off at the wrong foot and fail to take into account the basic managerial factors that enable organizations to move as one and accomplish change for the better.