What transformation leaders are missing about change
After years of working on transformation projects, I can say some patterns remain the same....transformation leaders underestimate how much behavior matters.
They focus on: → Strategy → Technology → Training → Communication
Yet, they underestimate (not an exhaustive list): → Existing habits → Mental models → Social influences → Fear of looking incompetent → The cognitive load of learning new things → Adjusting incentives → Meaning → Context
In the end, people in orgs aren't always resisting the change, they are just responding to the environment, their capabilities, and their beliefs about what's expected.
When transformation just don't seem to be changing much more than the tools, it's easy to blame the people or say something about the culture of the org... but culture is just collective behavior that's been reinforced over time.
If you want to change culture, you need to change the behaviors and to do that you have to make sure you not only diagnose where the friction is for the new behaviors, but also have the right levers to design the right strategies.
This is why you should start every transformation by including a behavioral approach.
In the end, the best change strategies in the world are not going to work if you aren't specific about the behaviors,and if you don't understand and design for what stops people from doing what the strategy requires.
What's the biggest behavioral barrier you've seen in transformation work?