My belief is that change practitioners and the business people we work with would benefit from doing change with people rather than to them, that changes would go better if our focus was on supporting people as they lead themselves through change.

This mindset:

• Sees change as improv rather than scripted theater with a director.
• Sees all of us as “doers” and “receivers” of the change. There is no we or they, there’s just us.
• Casts leaders as “leading from the shadows”, subtly influencing and guiding, being a collaborator/co-creator with and supporter of rather than being the director, primary actor, or face of the change.

Barriers

My experience is that, in general, this is not how change management is practiced today. Why not? What gets in the way?

Putting my “business person” hat on for a moment (which is an important thing for us as change management practitioners to do) I think people fear:

• The change won’t achieve desired end results.
• The change will take too much time and money.
• A loss of control and an unfamiliar approach.

It’s not lost on me that these concerns are often the same ones change practitioners encounter with business people we work with. Which of us hasn’t encountered sentiments such as:

• This is how we’ve always done things around here.
• This way works fine, why change?
• The new way won’t work, it will just slow me down and make me less efficient / productive.
• You don’t understand the uniqueness of my situation and why the new way won’t work.

Change practitioners often say people who have these concerns, who don’t quickly get past them and “get on the bus” are being resistant to change. We then say we need to manage/mitigate this resistance. If I didn’t know better I might say we as change practitioners are resistant to changing how we think about and practice change!

If I didn’t know better I might say we as change practitioners are resistant to changing how we think about and practice change!

In my next three posts, I will explore each of these concerns about doing change with people rather than to them.

Closing thoughts

I want to hear from you. How do you feel and think about this shift in practicing change management? What do you agree and/or disagree with?

Please post your thoughts and comments below. Let’s help each other become the best change management practitioners and enthusiasts we can be!

Thank you for reading. Until next time, take care and keep up the good work!

Mike