If people aren't adopting or engaging.. maybe your change approach needs some changing!
We keep getting told that change is all about individuals and that it comes from educating and communicating... yet as leaders we rarely want to work on changing the incentives, workflows, and defaults, nor do we have the right change tools to get to the root causes that keep pushing people in the wrong direction.
Every day I talk to leaders who tell me their adoption and engagement is low, and that they are wasting resources, and barely getting the impact they are expecting from those change programs they are investing on.
When we speak, I explain to them that it’s because of the gap between what they have been doing (comms, training, etc..) and what behavior change requires ---> people + system + behavioral tools.
In more simple terms
Most CM tells us what needs to happen - this is fine.... but we also need the Why” it happens and “How” to make it happen - which we get from a behavioral science approach.
When they realize this, they see that the work in change they are doing incomplete... and this is where they want to invest more of their resources on, in closing that gap.
When the gap closes, things get really interesting, leaders and teams recognize that the opportunities and potential to change were there all along, it was just hidden in this old way of thinking and doing - most made to put the responsibility on individuals.
If you’re like the leaders I work with and advise - who are tired of seeing their change programs, products, services and so on not live up to the potential, then take the best of what these books teach and give you and apply a behavioral lens to them.
Over the last years, this is what I have been doing, seeing what they do well and where the gaps are that we can help solve - and briging those insights and tools into consulting work.
The process does not need to be complicated - we even upskill teams with our behavioral science for change management training - to give them the tools they need to fill the gaps.
I am thankful for all the change literature and books, because they have helped me see opportunities to make change better, more realistic, practical and in the end more impactful.
I leave you with these 5 things to reflect on:
1. Define change in terms of specific, observable behaviors and not abstract stages or attitudes 2. Motivation is driven by beliefs, habits, identity, and emotion, not communication alone 3.
Design the environment so that the desired behaviors are the easiest and most natural to do 4. Tailor interventions to the real psychological and contextual barriers and not one-size-fits-all solutions 5. Build feedback, reinforcement, and stable routines into the system to sustain change over time