Success means adopting new behaviours

This week I am helping two companies build their change management capability. The first organisation is a software company, and I am training their delivery consultants who will use their training to help their clients develop and adopt new ways of working to get the most out of new software. The second organisation is training their project managers, so that they can create and manage integrated delivery and adoption plans.  This integrated approach brings the responsibility for creating and using new ways of working under the oversight of the project managers. 

Both organisations face the same challenge which is that they are asking managers normally responsible for tangible deliverables to move into a space dominated by attitudes and feelings so they can inspire behaviour change. For anyone who has ever tried to give up smoking, lose weight or get fit, we can appreciate that stopping comfortable patterns of behaviour and replacing them with new habits and routines is never easy. 

Build motivation before capability 

These managers are comfortable with their current role, so the first example of behaviour change starts with them. Helping them to find reasons why they should expand their role to accept these new responsibilities is essential if they are to feel motivated to learn.  

They are a great case study for change, because as I start to explain behaviour change, they look stunned at the amount of new thinking that they are having to absorb. They need to put everything they are learning into context, so the first step has to be talking about their customers (typically external for delivery consultants; internal for project managers). If they can imagine the people, they can imagine their reactions to changing how they work. This creates an interest in dealing with resistance and push-back to the new ways of working. 

Added to this approach is a broader motivation for how this will help their careers. I give examples of senior leadership interviews, where the ability to lead change and transformation is a core competency and investigated fully. As McKinsey state in their article on change is changing “The core task of leadership is managing change; seeing new realities and driving adaptation. To reinvent the organization, leaders must rethink traditional tools and master a more complex level of change.” 

Increasingly I am contacted by Chief HR Officers who realise that as part of their talent development programmes, they must include change leadership. As AI continues its path of automation across all areas of work, hiring humans moves towards hiring those who can achieve lead repeated restructures and changes to workflows.  

To keep things relevant, I encourage managers on my courses to write-up examples of changes they have achieved into their LinkedIn profiles. This links the training directly to them and their career. It is another empathy moment, as I explain that “what is in it for me?” is an argument they will need to win with their clients. 

Behaviour change is challenging 

Building their motivation for behaviour change is essential, because achieving adoption of new ways of working is not a simple, linear path. It is characterised by “two steps forward; one step back” as people try things out, find problems, get disheartened and must be re-energised before they take the next step. Behaviour change requires the highest levels of influence and persuasion and the emotional intelligence to constantly alter course in response to the reactions of those we are nudging to adopt new ways of working. We need a broad range of techniques, because those activities that trigger behaviour change in one person has no effect on someone else. 

I do not think we are helped by the most famous models of change, which imply that to get people to work in new ways, we need to build their awareness of the scope and then create appreciation for the benefits of the change. Very few models address the complexity of learning new ways of working, which relies on the psychology of habit forming. We cannot devise a plan for this, because everyone is different, so must switch tactics to meet different preferences. Instead of a series of activities that we can tick off one after the other, we need an extensive toolkit of techniques.    

Training has limitations 

Whilst I am providing lots of practice of techniques, debriefing the groups about what they have learnt, sharing examples and ideas for how to apply the techniques to their situation, it is impossible to cover the full range of ideas in a short training session.  

Knowing there are so many ideas I could share but do not have the time for is frustrating. The formality of a training course is best suited to transferring knowledge, it is harder to build in the necessary practice to develop skills and confidence, which are the elements of capability. 

The value of training is in the shared experience. As a kick-start to capability building, it cannot be bettered. As people learn together, they build bonds which enables them to share ideas and experiences which deepens the learning for everyone.  

In a broad and ever-developing subject like change, I think change management training builds understanding of the challenge and outlines an approach to leading people through the transition from current to new ways of working. The training should include techniques to explain how it might be possible to achieve this, but when the training ends, there must be follow up.  

Effective training follow-up 

After training, what people need is the support in the moment, to help them deal with the difficult conversations that change creates. These conversations include: 

• Anger at the loss of work that the person was skilled in, respected for and found easy to do 

• Fear at the addition of new responsibilities and new ways of working that they have no experience of, and that they might not be any good at 

• Jealousy that another colleague or another team are able to retain some of their work when others have to make significant changes 

• Frustration that the reasons for change do not feel clear or sufficient to justify all the effort 

• Hopelessness at the never-ending pressure of work, trying to balance achieving performance targets whilst taking time out to make change happen 

In the moment coaching 

Coaching needs to be immediate, at the point of need. It loses its value if solutions can only be discussed at the next scheduled appointment with your coach.  

I have built a tool that enables everyone to access answers when they need them. Everyone responsible for making change happen can ask a question and be given a practical solution including a simple, intuitive description of what action to take, examples of what this looks like, techniques to apply to their situation, so they can solve their own issues and ideas for what to do next  

To ensure everyone can get the support they need, the AI powering ChangeabilityPro enables you to describe your problem, in your own words, with no requirement to express yourself using change management terminology.  

You describe the difficult conversation you anticipate having with your colleagues and ChangeabilityPro® will use its access to change and transformation specific content to answer you. This content is always fresh, the AI powering the answers is trained on new content every week, and new techniques, checklists, templates and guidance is launched every two weeks. 

Training supports coaching; coaching supports training 

It is the combination of the training and the coaching that makes the difference. Training can only take us so far, we all need ideas to help us take the next step. In the moment coaching, powered by a large language model dedicated to high quality, up to date and relevant change and transformation content keeps change going.  

There are no hold-ups whilst we source answers from colleagues or wait for a course or a coaching session. We get the answers we need when we need them, so we don’t lose momentum. After all, any change in behaviour is often hard won, we don’t want to roll-backwards because we don’t know the next step.  

To arrange a demonstration of ChangeabilityPro® – book a 30 minute one to one session with me