Barriers to Change
25
Change management has traditionally been limited to leadership—but modern organizations need everyone involved to succeed
Individuals must believe they can change in order to even try
How much change can one person make in a huge organization? Enough to make a difference.
If teams believe they don't have the right to make decisions about how they work, they won't feel responsible for making change
It’s hard to introduce change when an organization is doing well—but if you don't, you risk disruption from competitors
Develop a plan to make sure your teams have the basic skills to change—and the opportunities to apply them
Conformity encourages people to stick to old behavior—but convert enough people, and you'll reinforce new behaviors
If teams genuinely don't know how to operate in a different way, it can be hard to motivate them without coming across as a jerk
Leaders are under pressure to make quick decision for the organization as a whole—which means some problems get lost in the shuffle
The biggest threat cynicism poses is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if people are convinced change can't happen, it won't
If you can’t get your most experienced leaders aligned on a change, what hope does the rest of the organization have?
Change is still possible even with legal limitations and regulations—it just calls for a different approach
When "good enough" isn't good enough anymore, you must convince teams that change is worth the pain of disruption
Automatically rejecting ideas from the "outside" wastes time and energy that could be spent on desperately needed change
While setting overly ambitious goals may seem fairly innocuous, it can actually demotivate teams and compromise other standards
Influence is part of leading—and if you don’t do it, others will.