Why is change hard? 3 organizational designers explain how to beat the failure bias

In a collection of individuals, one bad seed can kill all the hard work you’re putting in. You must understand who you are working with so you can tailor your message and actions so no one becomes a bad seed. To do this, sort your team in the following categories:

• Fast Yes: those on your team and ready to work to implement the change.
• Slow Yes: slightly skeptical but still open and can see the value in what you’re doing.
• Fast No: quick to dismiss change but clarity and decisiveness can change that and turn them into strong supporters.
• Slow No: look like they can be persuaded but have already decided against you and will stall and undermine. Here, convincing by example is the best route.

It’s always exciting to bring a new tool you’re excited about to your team. But they might resist as even if the tool is free, there are costs with learning and switching, even productivity costs.

One way to get past this is to remove tools before adding new ones.

A habit gets formed when we do an action and repeatedly receive a positive result. However, with change, the benefits are often not immediately obvious.

You need to be able to track the behavior change you want to see in the workplace so you can have a sense of progress and reward. Ideally, use automated time and task tracking tools as they collect more data and are more precise than self-reporting.

Showing the positive outcomes of their work can be a huge motivating factor and can balance out pessimism. Meet with people in a place where they can be open, honest, and vulnerable.

Unless you’ve got a high-trust environment, you’re going to bring ideas up and people will dance around the issue or only say a few things. But when you talk to them individually you can explain what’s happening, what changes they should expect, and assure them that you’re going to follow up and help them.

Testing and validating ideas in smaller groups is a great Trojan Horse for more meaningful changes. But regardless of meaningfulness, change takes time.

Humans don’t deal well with big changes. And it’s important to stay strong and not get frustrated if the progress is slower than you’d hoped.