Why is your engagement, adoption, comms and change not moving into action?
After years of working to understand why people do what they do, both as an employee and now an owner of a consultancy, I've learned that behavior gets shaped by more factors than most change efforts consider.
Those factors can be:
-The environmental/system dynamics -How decisions are made -What people are capable of doing -What people's motivations and needs are -The Personal beliefs and attitudes -How people evaluate risk and value -Unconscious motives people don't even realize they have -What people see others doing -What people think others expect them to do
These factors interact in complex ways, that's why simple solutions usually don't work. (and what most consultants don’t want to tell you).
Those factors can appear in different levels as well, which can cause friction when you are working on adoption, engagement, culture, change, comms, compliance and so on.
Level 1: People Can't Do It (Even When They Want To) -Tools that are creating more work -Information scattered across systems that don't talk to each other (very common) -Processes that require too many workarounds, that they end up being ineffective. -Skills training that doesn't end up being transferrable to real work situations.
Level 2: The Environment Punishes New Behaviors You hear leaders say they want more openness, more collaboration, more experimentation..but….the real praise still goes to those who play it safe.
-In meetings people stay quiet because no one wants to go first and early adopters get eye-rolls - I've definitely gotten eye rolls in past jobs when presenting ideas.
-If you are the one who challenge the status quo you get labeled difficult. (I was called a "mad scientist" by a boss, and not sure that was a compliment)
Level 3: The Belief Feels Too True to Question Some behaviors don’t change because the belief behind them feels too solid to doubt. These beliefs aren’t based on training slides or campaigns. They come from experience, what’s worked, what’s been rewarded, what’s kept people safe or respected.
So when a new behavior pushes against one of those, people hesitate, they are not resisting for the sake of it. It’s that the change doesn’t make sense inside the logic they’ve relied on for years.
They may agree in meetings and may try for a while, but under pressure, they’ll return to what feels right - because it’s familiar, and familiar still feels correct.
You can’t shift that with reminders or incentives, you have to name the belief, understand how strong or weak it is and apply the right approach to it.
Here are 7 questions you can ask before starting a change project, use them as a foundation and add as needed.