Estratégia de gestão de mudança em enfermagem

Estratégias para gerenciar a mudança na enfermagem.

A comunicação pode ajudar os enfermeiros a se adaptarem à mudança organizacional.

Artigos relacionados.

1 [Papel] | O Papel de um Enfermeiro Líder na Comunicação 2 [Qualificações] | Qualificações para um diretor de enfermagem 3 [carreiras] | Como mudar de carreira sem partir 4 [dicas de contratação] | Entrevista & amp; Contratando Dicas em Enfermagem.

Navegar na mudança organizacional pode causar preocupação na equipe de enfermagem de uma instituição de saúde e sobrecarregar o moral dos funcionários. Ao planejar cuidadosamente as estratégias para implementar as mudanças, no entanto, os administradores podem obter o apoio de seus enfermeiros e até mesmo atribuí-los funções no desenvolvimento e avaliação do novo plano.

Comunicação.

Mesmo pequenas mudanças podem alarmar a equipe de enfermagem da instituição, que geralmente se preocupa com o que a transição significará para ela. Eles podem temer que possam perder seus empregos ou que a organização diminua seus salários ou aumente suas funções. A comunicação com os enfermeiros durante a mudança pode aliviar sua incerteza, eliminar surpresas e fazê-las sentirem-se envolvidas. Os administradores devem planejar suas estratégias de comunicação com bastante antecedência, designando líderes de enfermagem para supervisionar o esforço e determinar quando e como alertar os enfermeiros sobre os principais eventos. Os administradores de serviços de saúde podem usar estratégias de comunicação, como reuniões comunitárias, e-mail e mídias sociais, para permanecerem conectados à equipe de enfermagem.

O enfermeiro docente sobre as mudanças planejadas e seu impacto na instituição e na equipe de enfermagem pode eliminar parte da ansiedade em relação à mudança organizacional. Além disso, oferecer treinamento para ajudar os enfermeiros a se ajustarem a novas políticas ou procedimentos pode dar a eles as habilidades necessárias para navegar com sucesso pela mudança. Também os incentiva a assumir um papel ativo na transição. Seminários e workshops preparam enfermeiros para as mudanças iminentes e garantem que sejam implementados sem problemas. Para um treinamento mais intensivo, os administradores podem oferecer treinamento individual, designando líderes de enfermagem para ensinar aos enfermeiros as habilidades e os conhecimentos necessários para prosperar no novo ambiente de trabalho.

Incentive o trabalho em equipe.

Contar com a equipe de enfermagem para oferecer informações e auxiliar na solução de problemas pode impedir a resistência e oferecer uma visão das pessoas mais próximas do problema. Os gerentes podem organizar os enfermeiros em equipes, pedindo-lhes para discutir soluções para problemas ou oferecer recomendações para implementar as mudanças propostas. Isso pode extrair informações valiosas das pessoas responsáveis ​​pela integração das mudanças. Também demonstra que a organização valoriza as opiniões de seus enfermeiros.

Explique suas razões.

Para a equipe de enfermagem, as mudanças planejadas podem parecer arbitrárias ou confusas, mas os administradores que explicam as motivações por trás deles podem transformar os enfermeiros em seus maiores apoiadores. Se os enfermeiros souberem que as mudanças irão melhorar o atendimento ao paciente, facilitar o trabalho dos funcionários ou oferecer benefícios financeiros significativos à instalação, é mais provável que defendam a nova estrutura e façam o que for preciso para garantir o sucesso do plano. Também mostra que a liderança da instalação não espera que eles aceitem as mudanças sem entender as razões e os benefícios da nova maneira de fazer as coisas.

Portfólio: Escritos.

Liderança e Gerenciamento de Mudança: Navegando na Fronteira Turbulenta.

June Kaminski, MSN PhD (c)

A mudança não é mais uma saída irregular, uma perturbação inconveniente a ser empreendida a cada dez anos. Mudança é algo que temos que aprender a conviver, estruturar e administrar. A mudança está aqui para ficar, e os vencedores serão aqueles que lidarem com isso. "(Bainbridge, 1996, p. 4)

Introdução.

A adaptação à mudança tornou-se uma agenda comum para organizações de todos os tipos - saúde, negócios, social, governamental, educacional e cultural. As últimas décadas do século XX ficarão na história como uma "era de mudança perpétua". Em todas as organizações, os efeitos da mudança são multifacetados. "Novos competidores entram no mercado e eliminam bases estabelecidas de clientes, a tecnologia muda as regras de como os negócios podem ser realizados, a legislação exige mudanças na forma como os produtos e serviços são entregues e a desregulamentação lança novos blocos comerciais e setores industriais. Por trás disso, todas as expectativas dos clientes crescem à medida que se tornam cada vez mais conhecedoras e exigentes "(Bainbridge, 1996, p. Vii).

Formas tradicionais de fazer negócios estão saindo rapidamente pela janela. Burocracia, controle, rigidez e funcionalismo tornaram-se obsoletos e são obstáculos reais para a gestão da mudança. Talvez o maior obstáculo seja a atitude das pessoas em relação à mudança, que muitas vezes é fixa e resistente. No entanto, as empresas devem continuar a funcionar como novas capacidades e formas de lidar com a mudança após a mudança ser cultivada. Recursos e recursos são o coração de uma organização e são suscetíveis a mudanças: as pessoas, os sistemas de tecnologia da informação (TI), os procedimentos e as características de gerenciamento.

Mudança dentro das organizações ocorre em uma infinidade de níveis. Nova legislação internacional e nacional, clientes conscientes e exigentes, mercado global, sofisticação no desenvolvimento de TI, novos setores, mercados e setores de conhecimento, um movimento em direção a uma força de trabalho flexível e de curto prazo e incerteza sobre o futuro em todo o mundo. A combinação dessas mudanças generalizadas pode criar um ambiente de pressão nas organizações que lutam para se adaptar e prosperar.

O Fenômeno da Mudança.

Lewin (1951) produziu o primeiro modelo viável de mudança em seu modelo de campo de força. Neste modelo, a mudança foi caracterizada como um estado de desequilíbrio entre as forças motrizes e as forças de restrição. Se essas forças estivessem equilibradas ou em equilíbrio, nenhuma mudança poderia ocorrer. A mudança é inerente a todo contexto e é um conceito relativo. "Todo fenômeno está sujeito a mudanças, por mais aparentemente estável que seja sua natureza" (Wilson, 1992, p. 8). Essa mudança existe é uma noção previsível. "Em todos os setores e empresas, mudam os fluxos e refluxos em ciclos recorrentes que, pelo menos em certa medida, podem ser mapeados e, portanto, antecipados e gerenciados" (Nadler & amp; Nadler, 1998, p. 45).

A mudança é perturbadora, confusa e complicada. Mesmo com os melhores planos, os eventos raramente ocorrem exatamente como eles foram previstos. "A verdadeira mudança nas organizações reais é intensamente pessoal e enormemente política" (Nadler & amp; Nadler, 1998). Os processos de mudança envolvem não apenas estruturas e formas de executar tarefas, mas também o desempenho, expectativas e percepções de todas as partes envolvidas. A mudança tornou-se generalizada e imprevisível, mas ainda é administrável (Bainbridge, 1996). Uma característica inerente da mudança é que é arriscada, especialmente quando abrange muitos setores diferentes dentro de uma organização ou sociedade. A mudança também pode ser planejada ou emergente. Wilson apontou que uma mudança de modelos emergentes de mudança para modelos planejados tem ocorrido de forma constante nas últimas duas décadas. A mudança total não é aconselhável, uma vez que o contexto político e econômico do ambiente circundante não pode ser ignorado, e também deve ser adaptado para. Estratégias para lidar com mudanças não planejadas são tão necessárias quanto as planejadas.

Efeitos da mudança nas organizações.

Para efetivamente se adaptar à mudança, a maioria das organizações estabelecidas tem uma tarefa assustadora pela frente em uma variedade de áreas operacionais e de procedimentos. Os processos de negócios devem ser redefinidos e reprojetados e adaptados a contextos geográficos e culturais específicos. A força de trabalho precisa ser treinada novamente para estar pronta para mudanças em como o trabalho é feito, quais habilidades e conhecimentos são necessários, e como se relacionar com os colaboradores e clientes globais. A própria cultura de uma organização precisa ser remodelada para suportar adequadamente os novos processos introduzidos. Estruturas, sistemas de recompensa, medidas de avaliação e papéis precisam de redefinição (Bainbridge, 1996). Os estilos de liderança e os procedimentos de gerenciamento devem mudar e se adaptar, e as formas de relacionamento com clientes, fornecedores e outras partes interessadas precisam ser refinadas. Devem ser introduzidos avanços tecnológicos e capacidades, e é necessária a preparação da força de trabalho para trabalhar com as novas estruturas de TI.

A adaptação bem-sucedida à mudança exige "um entendimento sobre como converter e reconstruir a partir das complexidades e legados dos antigos, bem como gerar projetos sobre o novo" (Bainbridge, 1996, p. 12). A mudança exige que as organizações movam-se realisticamente para além dos processos antiquados, capacitem e reciclem os funcionários e incorporem os avanços da TI no ambiente de trabalho cotidiano. As organizações não estão mais reagindo a mudanças sequenciais ou ocasionais. Novas mudanças agora ocorrem quando as organizações estão no meio de iniciar o processo de mudança. A mudança se tornou perpétua. Para lidar com isso, as organizações precisam de um processo de design com estratégias e diretrizes para prosperar em uma infinidade de mudanças. "A mudança real é um processo integrado que se desdobra ao longo do tempo e toca todos os aspectos de uma organização" (Nadler & amp; Nadler, 1998, p. 6).

O papel e as questões dos líderes na orientação da mudança.

A criação e o design de processos de mudança dentro de uma organização são, na maioria das vezes, um papel dos líderes dentro dela. Os processos de mudança que abrangem recursos humanos, adoção e atualização de TI, ferramentas e técnicas, bem como as regras e controles básicos dentro da organização, são o mandato dos líderes envolvidos na gestão da mudança (Bainbridge, 1996). Cabe aos líderes tornar essas iniciativas de mudança tangíveis, em vez de abstratas, e despertar entusiasmo e apropriação das mudanças propostas dentro do ambiente corporativo. Os líderes são responsáveis ​​por preencher a lacuna entre as decisões estratégicas e a realidade de implementar as mudanças dentro da estrutura e da força de trabalho da organização. Uma miríade de detalhes e efeitos deve ser reconhecida e tratada para uma adaptação bem-sucedida à mudança em todos os setores de uma empresa.

"Subjacente a este princípio está o fato de que quase tudo na infraestrutura de uma organização tem influência em outra parte. O estilo de gerenciamento afeta a cultura, a tecnologia afeta a forma como a equipe interage com os clientes e os métodos de comunicação interna afetam a maneira como as pessoas trabalham juntas". 1996, p. 37). Uma abordagem holística para a gestão da mudança estimula o redesenho e a adaptação à mudança em todos os níveis organizacionais. Em essência, o próprio processo pode se tornar a plataforma para a mudança ocorrer, assim como o protetor das operações diárias existentes.

Uma imagem clara de como a empresa opera atualmente é oferecida, assim como uma imagem de como a empresa deve planejar, programar e passar pelo processo de mudança.

Nadler e Nadler (1998) enfatizaram a importância dos líderes na organização e manutenção de um clima de mudança dentro das organizações. Embora a participação de todos os jogadores seja necessária, o papel do líder no processo de mudança é crucial. Chamados de "campeões da mudança", são os líderes - os principais executivos que mantêm o processo de mudança em movimento, mantendo a integridade operacional da organização. Os líderes adaptativos fornecem orientação, proteção, orientação, controle de conflitos e a modelagem de normas, enquanto supervisionam o processo de mudança dentro da estrutura corporativa (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999). É necessário definir prioridades que incentivem a atenção disciplinada, mantendo um olhar atento para sinais de sofrimento nos membros da empresa.

Passos para transformar uma organização foram identificados por Conger et al (1999). As etapas incluíram: a) estabelecer um senso de urgência; b) formar uma coalizão orientadora poderosa; c) criar uma visão; d) comunicar a visão; e) capacitar outros a agir sobre a visão; f) planejar e criar ganhos de curto prazo; g) consolidar melhorias e produzir ainda mais mudanças e h) institucionalizar novas abordagens.

Um novo modelo de aprendizagem organizacional é importante para a sobrevivência e adaptação no novo século. A aprendizagem é um requisito fundamental para líderes e seguidores para que qualquer mudança efetiva e duradoura ocorra. "Sem aprendizado, as atitudes, habilidades e comportamentos necessários para formular e implementar uma nova tarefa estratégica não se desenvolverão, nem um novo quadro pelo qual as decisões de seleção e promoção são tomadas" (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999, p. 127). Os autores propuseram um processo de aprendizagem de ação, chamado Organizational Fitness Profiling, para ajudar os líderes a aprender como transformar habilmente o negócio específico que estão administrando. Diálogos agendados com seguidores fornecem informações sobre como o estilo e os comportamentos de liderança afetam os valores, o design organizacional, as estratégias e as percepções dos seguidores. O sucesso organizacional é um processo de adaptação mútua entre valores e comportamentos do líder, pessoas existentes, cultura e projeto organizacional em meio a um ambiente de mudança contínua e prolífica. Esse processo de criação de perfil exige que os líderes sejam corajosos o suficiente para aprender sobre suas próprias suposições e valores sobre as funções e tarefas de mudança, liderança e gerenciamento. Em essência, "é necessária uma mudança de paradigma no pensamento gerencial sobre liderança e desenvolvimento organizacional" (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999, p. 158).

Tipos e Complexidades de Mudança.

Segundo Wilson (1992), a tecnologia tornou-se o motor de mudança para muitas organizações. Nadler e Nadler (1998) creditaram aumento da concorrência e globalização como os fatores mais abrangentes no novo ambiente de mudança global. Eccles (1994) descreveu seis contextos de mudança comuns ao mundo corporativo. Mudanças de aquisição, troca de injeção, mudança de sucessão, mudança de renovação, mudança de parceria e mudança catalítica foram todas identificadas como inerentes e desafiadoras para a maioria das organizações modernas. A mudança de aquisição envolve principalmente uma mudança nos agentes de gerenciamento. A mudança de injeção significa uma mudança no CEO ou no alto gerente sênior. A mudança de sucessão é sentida quando a camada de gerenciamento superior é sucedida pelos membros atuais que sobem a escada à medida que o gerenciamento existente se retira ou segue em frente. A mudança de renovação implica o processo de mudança planejado estabelecido pela administração, enquanto a mudança de parceria ocorre quando as decisões de mudança são compartilhadas por todo o espectro de participantes organizacionais. "Finalmente, e num estilo diferente dos outros cinco contextos, há uma mudança catalítica na qual uma agência, normalmente um conjunto de consultores ou assessores, intervém em nome de um ou mais stakeholders, geralmente a gerência" (Eccles, 1994, p. 88).

A mudança duradoura deve ocorrer em muitos níveis dentro de uma organização (Nadler e Nadler, 1998). As pessoas, o trabalho e a organização formal e informal são todas as facções-chave a serem consideradas e trabalhadas. Nadler e Nadler (1998) identificaram quatro tipos diferentes de mudança organizacional. Mudança incremental ou contínua é a seqüência ordenada de mudança que é esperada conforme o progresso do tempo e do crescimento. A melhoria contínua passo a passo é a reação mais lógica à mudança incremental. Mudança descontínua ou radical é outra questão. "Mudanças complexas e amplas provocadas por mudanças fundamentais no ambiente externo são mudanças radicais ou descontínuas" (Nadler & amp; Nadler, 1998, p. 50). A mudança descontínua requer mudanças radicais na abordagem e estratégia, muitas vezes levando a uma revisão completa da organização.

A mudança antecipada é feita na ausência de ameaça e na preparação para mudanças ambientais antecipadas. As mudanças reativas representam o oposto da mudança antecipada e são respostas às ameaças e à competição no meio ambiente. Nadler,

Shaw e Walton (1995) advertiram que a era atual está rapidamente se tornando uma mudança descontínua. "A principal competência para os líderes empresariais no século XXI será o gerenciamento de mudanças" (p. 273). Os líderes precisarão de habilidade e motivação para se tornarem agentes de mudança visionários constantes. Mudanças descontínuas afetam profundamente três áreas principais de qualquer organização: capacidade de liderança, arquitetura organizacional e identidade corporativa. Improvisação, inovação e conscientização visionária serão o nome do jogo para empresas de sucesso. A espontaneidade planejada e o oportunismo deliberado serão a chave para a sobrevivência em um ambiente global turbulento. Alterações podem ocorrer em vários setores diferentes de uma organização simultaneamente. Estratégico, estrutural, cultural, tecnológico, fusão e aquisição, desmembramento e spin-off, downsizing e mudanças expansivas são comuns, complexos e desafiadores para incorporar ao ambiente organizacional (Nadler & amp; Nadler, 1998).

Ferramentas e Estratégias de Mudança de Liderança.

Bainbridge (1996) delineou um processo de cinco etapas de redesenho para organizações que estão passando por mudanças planejadas. As cinco etapas incluem:

a) o estágio de projeto para determinar os requisitos gerais;

b) a fase de definição em que o projeto é especificado e a documentação dos requisitos da etapa de projeto ocorre;

c) o estágio de desenvolvimento, onde novas capacidades são cultivadas por meio de treinamento, educação e reestruturação;

d) o estágio de desmontagem, onde partes redundantes da organização são removidas ou convertidas em novas capacidades;

Esse processo de design é realizado dentro de uma arquitetura de processo de mudança cuidadosamente organizada. "Isso inclui o vínculo com objetivos estratégicos, a definição de medidas e a produção do próprio desenho de alto nível" (Bainbridge, 1996, p. 53). A visão da mudança deve ser expressa da forma mais clara possível e usada de forma consistente para liderar todas as etapas do processo de design de mudanças, incluindo a especificação de princípios de design. Os princípios de design refletem o contexto e também o conteúdo dos resultados de mudanças desejados internos e externos. A especificação e a comunicação desses princípios pelos líderes são necessárias para facilitar a adoção e a adaptação dentro da cultura organizacional. Pettigrew (1987) apontou a sabedoria de considerar o conteúdo, o contexto (interno e externo) e o processo de mudança dentro das organizações. Há uma necessidade de "explorar conexões de conteúdo, contexto e processo ao longo do tempo" (p. 6).

As estratégias de mudança organizacional tornaram-se um veículo viável para o sucesso dos negócios e a criação de desempenho competitivo. A capacidade de lidar com mudanças estratégicas é agora uma característica definidora de organizações pós-industriais de sucesso. "O leitmotiv da moderna teoria da administração é o de entender, criar e lidar com a mudança. A essência da tarefa gerencial torna-se assim de estabelecer alguma racionalidade, ou alguma previsibilidade, fora do aparente caos que caracteriza os processos de mudança" (Wilson, 1992, p. 7).

Uma abordagem de sistemas abertos pode facilitar os processos de mudança emergentes dentro de uma organização (Wilson, 1992). As ligações e interdependências entre a organização e o ambiente externo podem ser usadas para criar um padrão para a adaptação à mudança emergente. Galpin (1996) descreveu um processo para implementar a mudança planejada em um nível de base, usando as forças e capacidades dos recursos humanos dentro de uma organização como o centro central de mudança. Esse processo incluiu etapas de a) definição de metas; b) medir desempenho; c) fornecer feedback e coaching e d) instigar generosas recompensas e reconhecimento. Galpin também delineou os passos estratégicos que os líderes precisavam empregar para iniciar o processo de mudança. Essas etapas foram:

"a) definir a necessidade de mudar; b) desenvolver uma visão do resultado da mudança; c) alavancar equipes para projetar, testar e implementar mudanças; d) abordar os aspectos culturais da organização que ajudarão e sustentarão a mudança; e e) desenvolver os atributos e habilidades essenciais necessários para liderar o esforço de mudança "(p. 123).

O mapeamento cognitivo e a assistência computacional para apoio à decisão em grupo são estratégias alternativas de mudança que podem ajudar a cultivar o apoio do grupo para as iniciativas planejadas (Hendry, Johnson & Newton, 1993). Os mapas cognitivos ou sistemas de crenças estratégicas de gerentes e funcionários podem ter um efeito profundo sobre como a mudança é planejada e implementada. Os mapas cognitivos tornam-se uma ferramenta prática "agindo como um dispositivo para representar aquela parte do sistema de construção de uma pessoa que eles são capazes e estão dispostos a explicitar" (p. 121). No entanto, o mapa cognitivo é "significativamente influenciado pela interação social necessária, ou pelo olhar social, que é a base da elicitação por meio da entrevista" (p. 122). Ainda assim, mapas cognitivos podem ser uma ferramenta estratégica para negociação e tomada de decisão no processo de planejamento e implementação de mudanças.

Flamholtz e Randle (1998) identificaram o planejamento transformacional estratégico como uma ferramenta fundamental para a mudança em uma organização. Esse processo descreve o planejamento necessário para transformar uma organização no que ela precisa se tornar para maximizar o ajuste e reduzir as lacunas entre o tamanho da empresa, o ambiente, o conceito de negócio e o design organizacional. Flamholtz e Randle rotularam essas transformações como primeiro, segundo e terceiro tipos. Uma primeira espécie transformação relacionada à transformação de gestão profissional. Revitalização do planejamento ou transformação de segundo tipo relacionada a todas as camadas da pirâmide corporativa, enquanto as transformações da visão de negócios (terceiro tipo) focavam nas mudanças necessárias para abordar novos mercados e o papel da empresa nos mercados existentes. Todas essas três transformações foram abordadas usando o processo de planejamento transformacional: a) avaliação do ambiente; b) revisar os negócios existentes; c) resolver as principais questões transformacionais ed) desenvolver o plano estratégico transformacional escrito. Os gerentes organizacionais no topo devem demonstrar liderança, compromisso e convicção para o processo de mudança e transformação (Caravatta, 1998).

A mudança incremental, muitas vezes o resultado de um processo de análise e planejamento cuidadosamente pensado, tem sido a forma mais comum de mudança planejada dentro das organizações (Quinn, 1996). Um sentimento de controle é garantido, tempo e compromisso suficientes estão presentes, e cada etapa do processo pode ser testada e adaptada. No entanto, com o advento da tecnologia e da globalização, é necessária uma mudança profunda. "A mudança profunda difere da mudança incremental na medida em que requer novas maneiras de pensar e se comportar. É a mudança que é maior em escopo, descontínua com o passado e geralmente irreversível. Mudança profunda significa renunciar ao controle" (Quinn, 1996, p. 3). ). Mudança profunda em qualquer nível implica risco inerente. Para adaptar-se às profundas mudanças de nossos tempos, os líderes devem estar dispostos a sair em um membro, para assumir alguns grandes riscos, saindo de limites bem estabelecidos.

Efeitos e conseqüências da mudança.

Noer (1997) alertou os líderes para não dependerem muito de ferramentas externas para a mudança. "A busca fútil de uma ferramenta externa e objetiva é uma herança disfuncional do velho paradigma; o resultado da tentativa errônea de enxertar a objetividade do método científico nos fenômenos subjetivos do espírito humano. É um descompasso fundamental" ( 15). Segundo Noer, o líder, como pessoa, é a ferramenta mais importante para a mudança. O espírito, a percepção, a sabedoria, a compaixão, os valores e as habilidades de aprendizado do líder são aspectos importantes na capacidade de levar os outros a adotarem a mudança e o redesenho.

Para ser duradoura, mudanças profundas não devem ser feitas apenas em camadas organizacionais, mas dentro de cada um dos próprios jogadores. Mudanças pessoais profundas podem ser desconfortáveis, mas a necessidade de cada membro de uma organização se tornar capacitada e conduzida internamente é essencial para o sucesso nesta era de mudança e evolução. Quinn adverte que, se os jogadores não estão dispostos ou não são capazes de fazer essas mudanças pessoais profundas, então a "morte lenta" é a alternativa. A morte lenta, "uma experiência sem sentido e frustrante emaranhada em medo, raiva e desamparo, enquanto se move seguramente para o que é mais temido" é a consequência da resistência à mudança. Burnout pode ocorrer se esta resistência à mudança persistir, resultando em perda de emprego ou mesmo destruição da organização como um todo.

O líder que instiga a mudança dentro de uma empresa está freqüentemente sujeito a suspeitas especulativas. "Como a resistência é tão comum, aprender a superá-la é crucial para administrar a mudança em todos os níveis" (Nadler & Nadler, 1998, p. 84). O estágio de transição, onde o processo de mudança é instigado, deve ser tratado de maneira competente e com entusiasmo. Os líderes devem possuir e alinhar as mudanças propostas, definindo expectativas e modelando e comunicando a justificativa a todos os membros da organização. Os processos de engajamento e recompensa ajudam a motivar os membros, suavizando o período de transição e tentando conquistar os corações e as mentes de todos os envolvidos no processo de mudança.

Preparando-se para e Prosperando na Mudança Contínua do Futuro.

Quinn (1996) disse que "Somos todos agentes potenciais de mudança. À medida que disciplinamos nossos talentos, aprofundamos nossas percepções sobre o que é possível. Tendo experimentado uma mudança profunda em nós mesmos, somos capazes de trazer mudanças profundas aos sistemas que nos rodeiam". (p. xiii). Líderes que adotaram pessoalmente mudanças profundas são capazes de projetar processos de mudança que refletem uma postura de liderança heróica, porém iluminada, que transmite entusiasmo e vitalidade aos outros membros e cria uma nova perspectiva da lógica e da sabedoria de se mover com o fluxo da mudança. Nadler e Nadler (1998) descreveram uma matriz de quatro partes de respostas para mudar: ajuste, adaptação, redirecionamento e revisão geral. "Tuning" representa um processo de mudança antecipada em resposta a mudanças incrementais ou contínuas, enquanto "adaptar" representa uma resposta reativa. "Redirecionar" é uma resposta antecipatória à mudança descontínua e radical, enquanto "revisão" representa uma resposta reativa à mudança descontínua.

Para sobreviver aos efeitos da mudança contínua, os líderes precisam realizar três tarefas principais: a) moldar a dinâmica política do processo de mudança; b) motivar a mudança; e c) gerenciar o período de transição (Nadler e Nadler, 1998). Pasmore (1994) identificou a flexibilidade como um traço chave para uma implementação bem-sucedida da mudança. "Outra estratégia deve ser empregada, que prepara a organização para a mudança contínua em um mundo que não oferece estabilidade e não aceita desculpas por estar despreparado; uma estratégia baseada na flexibilidade. Ser flexível significa ser capaz de mudar tudo, tudo ao mesmo tempo. "(p. 5). No mundo de hoje, essa flexibilidade está relacionada a pessoas, tecnologia, modos de pensar, formas de liderar e ao design organizacional real. O truque parece, é perceber que uma vez que uma mudança é alcançada, a mudança não está terminada. É contínuo e perpétuo (Hambrick, Nadler, & amp; Tushman, 1998).

"Normas, valores e princípios operacionais comuns, em vez de regras e supervisão direta, fornecerão a coesão necessária para fornecer direção e coordenação" (Nadler, Shaw & amp; Walton, 1995). O líder eficaz moldará a visão e os valores da organização e gastará um tempo considerável no desenvolvimento de líderes e membros da equipe. Uma cultura e uma rede fortemente desenvolvidas e integradas de indivíduos que usam seu próprio senso de liderança aumentarão as capacidades organizacionais para uma adaptação bem-sucedida a mudanças de todos os tipos e magnitudes.

Conger, Spreitzer e Lawler, (1999) advertiram que as velhas formas de moldar os comportamentos dos empregados, a saber, a persuasão racional e a coerção, estão fora de moda e não funcionarão no futuro. No passado, raramente conseguiram perpetuar mudanças duradouras. No futuro, eles poderiam ser mortais para qualquer organização. Em vez disso, sugere-se um estilo de mudança reminiscente dos comportamentos usados ​​por Martin Luther King e M. Gandhi: uma estratégia de auto-modificação fortalecedora.

Essa técnica é baseada mais em uma premissa moral-relacional do que em um paradigma político-técnico, que "requer que o agente de mudança empregue um alto nível de complexidade cognitiva, comportamental e moral" (p. 164). Para sacudir as pessoas de posturas complacentes, ou de tomar "o caminho da menor resistência", o verdadeiro empoderamento deve ser experimentado. Os membros devem sentir-se desafiados e apoiados por sentimentos de capacitação a desenvolver. Com efeito, isso implica líderes dispostos a modelar os comportamentos desejados: a capacidade de andar na beira do caos, saindo da zona de conforto e deixando o controle. A disciplina interna, visão, expectativa e sensibilidade do líder é reforçada, o que é evidente para os seguidores e pares. "Ao libertar-se de sanções externas por meio de modificação pessoal, o agente de mudança obtém maior compreensão, esclarecimento ou visão sobre direção e estratégia" (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999, p. 170).

O ambiente acelerado de hoje exige que as pessoas e organizações desenvolvam a capacidade de se adaptarem a mudanças e transtornos generalizados (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999). "A tecnologia de ponta, o triunfo do capitalismo sobre o comunismo, uma economia global florescente, um bilhão de novos participantes na força de trabalho global e um excedente de produtos alimentam um ambiente altamente competitivo e de rápida mudança" (p. xxxi). A chave para uma mudança organizacional bem sucedida é heróica e aprendeu a gestão de mudanças por líderes competentes e visionários. A mudança pode ser gerenciada em um estilo top-down ou como um exercício altamente participativo de todos os níveis de pessoal. A mudança é específica do contexto, o que significa que nenhum processo de mudança é apropriado para cada situação ou entidade corporativa.

Os líderes são responsáveis ​​por definir o contexto para a mudança dentro de uma organização. Deve-se cultivar uma cultura e uma visão que possam apoiar as mudanças planejadas e lidar com mudanças não planejadas. Previsão, energização e capacitação são estratégias importantes para reunir apoio para iniciativas de mudança. Os líderes devem ser capazes de aconselhar, ensinar, treinar e recompensar os funcionários à medida que eles adotarem e passarem pelo processo de mudança. Para que ocorra uma mudança duradoura, hábitos, atitudes e valores em todos os níveis de uma organização devem ser congruentes com a visão e os objetivos inerentes ao processo.

Líderes transformadores compartilham características fundamentais que lhes permitem capacitar membros organizacionais no processo de mudança (Conger, Spreitzer & amp; Lawler, 1999). Eles são capazes de gerar a energia necessária para empreender o processo de mudança; use a visão para liderar; ter uma perspectiva total do sistema; criar um processo sustentado de aprendizagem organizacional incorporado em um processo de implementação de mudanças sistêmicas. "Eles devem criar uma arquitetura de processo transformadora para orquestrar a passagem do estado atual para o estado de visão" (p. 225). À medida que o sucesso no contexto de transição da mudança é experimentado, o conforto e a preparação são desenvolvidos, equipando os membros da organização com capacidades para lidar com uma mudança ainda maior. A mudança tornou-se o nome do jogo, e o líder sábio a abraça de braços abertos. O sucesso da entidade corporativa e as pessoas dentro dela dependem disso.

Referências.

Bainbridge, C. (1996). Projetando para a mudança: Um guia prático para transformação de negócios. New York: John Wiley.

Caravatta, M. (1998). Let's work smarter, not harder: How to engage your entire organization in the execution of change . Milwaukee, WI: ASQ Quality Press.

Conger, J. A., Spreitzer, G. M. & Lawler, III, E. E. (eds.) (1999). The leader's change handbook: An essential guide to setting direction and taking action . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Eccles, T. (1994). Succeeding with change: Implementing action-driven strategies . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Flamholtz, E. & Randle, Y. (1998). Changing the game: Organizational transformations of the first, second, and third kinds . New York: Oxford University Press.

Galpin, T. J. (1996). The human side of change: A practical guide to organization redesign . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hambrick, D. C., Nadler, D. A. & Tushman, M. L. (1998). Navigating change: How CEOs, top teams, and boards steer transformation . Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Hendry, J., Johnson, G. & Newton, J. (1993). Strategic thinking, leadership, and the management of change . New York: J. Wiley.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science . New York: Harper & Row.

Nadler, D. A., Shaw, R. B. & Walton, A. E. (1995). Discontinuous change: Leading organizational transformation . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Nadler, D. A. (1998). Champions of change: How CEOs and their companies are mastering the skills of radical change . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Nevis, E. C., Lancourt, J., & Vassallo, H. G. (1996). Intentional revolutions: A seven-point strategy for transforming organizations . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Noer, D. M. (1997). Breaking free: A prescription for personal and organizational change . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pasmore, W. A. (1994). Creating strategic change: Designing the flexible, high - performing organization . New York: J. Wiley.

Pettigrew, A. M. (ed.) (1988). The management of strategic change . New York: B. Blackwell.

Quinn, R. E. (1996). Deep Change: Discovering the leader within . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wallace, B. & Ridgeway, C. (1996). Leadership for strategic change . London, UK: Institute of Personnel and Development.

10 Principles of Leading Change Management.

These time-honored tools and techniques can help companies transform quickly. And watch the video, “How to Lead Change Management.”

Illustration by Lo Cole.

Since the mid-2000s, organizational change management and transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the chopping block, and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, firms have become more sophisticated in the best practices for organizational change management. They are far more sensitive to and more keenly aware of the role that culture plays. They’ve also had to get much better on their follow-through.

Yet according to a 2013 Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey of global senior executives on culture and change management, the success rate of major change initiatives is only 54 percent. This is far too low. The costs are high when change efforts go wrong—not only financially but in confusion, lost opportunity, wasted resources, and diminished morale. When employees who have endured real upheaval and put in significant extra hours for an initiative that was announced with great fanfare see it simply fizzle out, cynicism sets in.

How to Lead Change Management.

DeAnne Aguirre, senior partner with Strategy&, discusses techniques that can help companies transform quickly and effectively.

Our experience with organizational change management suggests that there are three major hurdles to overcome. The first—no surprise—is “change fatigue,” the exhaustion that sets in when people feel pressured to make too many transitions at once. A full 65 percent of respondents to the Katzenbach Center survey reported this as a problem. The change initiatives they suffered through may have been poorly thought through, rolled out too fast, or put in place without sufficient preparation. Fatigue is a familiar problem in organizational change management, especially when splashy “whole new day” initiatives are driven from the top.

Change initiatives also flounder, according to 48 percent of the respondents, because companies lack the skills to ensure that change can be sustained over time. Leaders might set out eagerly to raise product quality, but when production schedules slow and the pipeline starts looking sparse, they lose heart. Lacking an effective way to deal with production line problems, they decide their targets were unrealistic, they blame the production technology, or they accuse their frontline people of not being up to the task. A much better way to solve the problem is to invest in operational improvements, such as process design and training, to instill new practical approaches and give people the knowledge and cultural support they need.

The third major obstacle is that transformation efforts are typically decided upon, planned, and implemented in the C-suite, with little input from those at lower levels. This filters out information that could be helpful in designing the initiative while also limiting opportunities to get frontline ownership of the change. In the Katzenbach Center survey, 44 percent of participants reported not understanding the changes they were expected to make, and 38 percent said they didn’t agree with the changes.

The following list of 10 guiding principles for change can help executives navigate the treacherous shoals of transformation in a systematic way.

1. Lead with the culture. Lou Gerstner, who as chief executive of IBM led one of the most successful business transformations in history, said the most important lesson he learned from the experience was that “culture is everything.” Businesspeople today understand this. In the Katzenbach Center survey, 84 percent said that the organization’s culture was critical to the success of change management, and 64 percent saw it as more critical than strategy or operating model. Yet change leaders often fail to address culture—in terms of either overcoming cultural resistance or making the most of cultural support. Among respondents whose companies were unable to sustain change over time, a startling 76 percent reported that executives failed to take account of the existing culture when designing the transformation effort.

Skilled change managers make the most of their company’s existing culture.

Why would this be true, given the widespread recognition of culture’s importance? Perhaps it’s because change management designers view their company’s culture as the legacy of a past from which they want to move on. Or they get so focused on structural details—reporting lines, decision rights, and formal processes—that they forget that human beings with strong emotional connections to the culture will be enacting these changes. Or they assume that culture, because it is “soft” and informal, will be malleable enough to adapt without requiring explicit attention.

Yet skilled change managers, conscious of organizational change management best practices, always make the most of their company’s existing culture. Instead of trying to change the culture itself, they draw emotional energy from it. They tap into the way people already think, behave, work, and feel to provide a boost to the change initiative. To use this emotional energy, leaders must look for the elements of the culture that are aligned to the change, bring them to the foreground, and attract the attention of the people who will be affected by the change.

In two healthcare companies undergoing a merger, culture led the post-deal integration. Using a culture-related diagnostic questionnaire, the change management team asked people to describe each company’s operating style—and mapped the responses from the two legacy companies to get a sense of their combined strengths and challenges. It quickly became clear that where one company had a culture attuned to bottom-line results, the other tended to focus on process. Optimally, the new company would need to skillfully use processes to deliver clear results. By first taking the time to recognize and acknowledge each company’s underlying culture, leaders of the merged firm harnessed deeply ingrained strengths to energize the change and avoided the incoherence that could have resulted from a less intentional and sensitive redesign.

2. Start at the top. Although it’s important to engage employees at every level early on, all successful change management initiatives start at the top, with a committed and well-aligned group of executives strongly supported by the CEO. This alignment can’t be taken for granted. Rather, work must be done in advance to ensure that everyone agrees about the case for the change and the particulars for implementing it.

A clinical research firm was committed to tripling its size over the next decade to achieve a more competitive position. Because the company was still pretty much operating as a startup after 25 years, this required a far-reaching organizational redesign. Before starting the design phase, finance leaders gathered at an off-site meeting to begin a rigorous exercise in alignment. The exercise included a leadership team effectiveness survey, which revealed that though these leaders called themselves a team, they didn’t really see themselves that way. Instead, they mostly operated as lone rangers, in characteristic startup style.

Each of the executives in the group made a thoughtful individual presentation about the case for change. Most of them agreed on the general direction the company needed to take to achieve rapid growth. But their descriptions of how to move in that direction—for example, what the first concrete steps should be—were all over the map. They were then tasked to work together to develop a case for change that every one of them could support.

To hammer out these agreements, these top executives had to listen closely to their colleagues and weigh conflicting points of view. The exercise was demanding, but they began to coalesce around a coherent vision for what the company should look like in 10 years. Most importantly, the experience of working together so intensely led the executives, for once, to act as a collaborative and committed team. By the end of the off-site meeting, they found that they were all using the same language to describe what the company needed to do. As one participant noted, the experience had transformed him , which in turn gave him confidence that together they could cascade the plan to other groups at other levels of the hierarchy.

3. Involve every layer. Strategic planners often fail to take into account the extent to which midlevel and frontline people can make or break a change initiative. The path of rolling out change is immeasurably smoother if these people are tapped early for input on issues that will affect their jobs. Frontline people tend to be rich repositories of knowledge about where potential glitches may occur, what technical and logistical issues need to be addressed, and how customers may react to changes. In addition, their full-hearted engagement can smooth the way for complex change initiatives, whereas their resistance will make implementation an ongoing challenge.

Planners who resist early engagement at multiple levels of the hierarchy often do so because they believe that the process will be more efficient if fewer people are involved in planning. But although it may take longer in the beginning, ensuring broad involvement saves untold headaches later on. Not only does more information surface, but people are more invested when they’ve had a hand in developing a plan. One common aphorism in change management is “you have to go slow to go fast.”

IBM recognized the need for such an approach in 2003, when rolling out a new initiative on culture. The leadership team had met intensively to develop clear definitions of the cultural traits the organization would require going forward. They then declared a “values jam,” a website set up for a 72-hour period, where anyone in the company could post comments, responses, suggestions, and concerns. Leaders then made key changes based on the feedback they received and communicated clearly how the input they’d received was being incorporated.

4. Make the rational and emotional case together. Leaders will often make the case for major change on the sole basis of strategic business objectives such as “we will enter new markets” or “we will grow 20 percent a year for the next three years.” Such objectives are fine as far as they go, but they rarely reach people emotionally in a way that ensures genuine commitment to the cause. Human beings respond to calls to action that engage their hearts as well as their minds, making them feel as if they’re part of something consequential.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman and her senior executive team appear to be following this principle in their transformation efforts. They have sought to activate a strong personal connection between HP and its employees, by drawing directly on the company’s cultural history and traditions. For example, through symbolic gestures such as tearing down the fences that surrounded the executive parking lot and moving top executives into cubicles, the company has reinforced the original “HP Way” ethic in which the intrinsic quality of the work is as important as one’s position in the hierarchy. (Whitman tells this story in an April 2013 LinkedIn blog post, “The Power of Transparent Communication.”) This strategy contrasts with that of Whitman’s immediate predecessors, who had declared it was time for the company to abandon its core identity. In any organization facing a challenging environment, the emotional connection fostered by moves like these is likely to make a major difference.

5. Act your way into new thinking. Many change initiatives seem to assume that people will begin to shift their behaviors once formal elements like directives and incentives have been put in place. People who work together on cross-functional teams will start collaborating because the lines on the chart show they are supposed to do so. Managers will become clear communicators because they have a mandate to deliver a message about the new strategy.

Yet lines on a chart and bold statements of intent have only so much impact. Far more critical to the success of any change initiative is ensuring that people’s daily behaviors reflect the imperative of change. Start by defining a critical few behaviors that will be essential to the success of the initiative. Then conduct everyday business with those behaviors front and center. Senior leaders must visibly model these new behaviors themselves, right from the start, because employees will believe real change is occurring only when they see it happening at the top of the company.

Leaders of a major global manufacturer seeking to escape bankruptcy believed the company had lost touch with customers because of entrenched problems in its culture. Managers operated in an overly layered system without much accountability. They were ponderous, risk averse, insular, and prone to spending time on approvals and office politics. Instead of implementing a dramatic, full-scale turnaround, the change team demanded that leaders adopt three specific behaviors:

Make major, visible decisions in days instead of weeks or months. Spend time with people at the frontline leadership (supervisory) level, asking for their input and engaging them in frank discussions. Ensure the middle and lower ranks have direct contact with real-life customers.

Because these behavioral shifts were both limited and clearly spelled out, they were implemented quickly. Leaders were asked to act “as if” the organization did things this way, rather than trying to think their way out of old ways of being. These behaviors accelerated the company’s passage out of bankruptcy, which occurred ahead of schedule.

6. Engage, engage, engage. Leaders often make the mistake of imagining that if they convey a strong message of change at the start of an initiative, people will understand what to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Powerful and sustained change requires constant communication, not only throughout the rollout but after the major elements of the plan are in place. The more kinds of communication employed, the more effective they are, which is why HP’s tearing down that fence was so important: Symbols reinforce the impact of words.

A global publisher undertook a major initiative to become more digital, putting in place far-reaching structural changes. The top leaders decided to engage people throughout the company at a variety of levels. First, they convened a series of town halls where large groups were given the news and invited to ask how the company-wide shift would affect them. Executives followed this with function-wide meetings where people could learn, for example, about the prospective impact on finance or human resources. The company also offered a version of fireside conversations they called “PIE chats” (PIE stood for performance, innovation, and execution). Finally, an internal trade fair was planned to showcase what various teams were doing to make the company more digital. This multifaceted and ongoing communications effort kept the message alive, giving every employee an understanding of the change and a stake in the outcome.

7. Lead outside the lines. Change has the best chance of cascading through an organization when everyone with authority and influence is involved. In addition to those who hold formal positions of power—the company’s recognized leaders—this group includes people whose power is more informal and is related to their expertise, to the breadth of their network, or to personal qualities that engender trust.

We call these informal leaders “special forces.” They can be found throughout any organization. They might include a well-respected field supervisor, an innovative project manager, or a receptionist who’s been at the firm for 25 years. Companies that succeed at implementing major change identify these people early and find ways to involve them as participants and guides. There are three distinct kinds of informal leaders:

• Pride builders are great at motivating others and inspiring them to take pride in their work. People influenced by them feel good about working for the organization and have a desire to go above and beyond.

• Trusted nodes are go-to people. They are repositories of the organization’s culture. They are the ones approached by people who want to know what’s really happening in the organization—for example, when they’re trying to figure out if those leading a change initiative are actually going to follow through.

• Change or culture ambassadors know, as if by instinct, how to live the change the organization is making. They serve as both exemplars and communicators, spreading the word about why change is important.

Informal leaders must be identified before they can be engaged. The best way to do this in a large organization is to run a network analysis. By mapping out connections and seeing who people talk to, you can complement the formal org chart with one that enables you to lead outside the lines.

8. Leverage formal solutions. Persuading people to change their behavior won’t suffice for transformation unless formal elements—such as structure, reward systems, ways of operating, training, and development—are redesigned to support them. Many companies fall short in this area.

A law firm tried to professionalize its clubby culture, which clients perceived as inwardly focused. The lead partner group recognized that associates needed more formal mentoring and development. The existing system, in which partners who headed the practice groups conducted all the training, had led to uneven results. So the transformation team created a development committee and put out a call for experienced staff members willing to work with new hires. The team was delighted when a strong group of contributors volunteered and put in the time required to design a robust development program and start engaging associates.

After a strong start, however, the effort faltered; people who had been enthusiastic fell away. Debriefing those involved, leadership identified the problem: No formal mechanisms were in place to support or reward this participation. Calculations for bonuses left development work out of the equation, and although senior partners paid lip service to the “wonderful work” the development committee was doing, they seemed to regard its members as internal volunteers. Once they recognized this problem, the firm’s leaders enacted substantial policy changes, starting with a mechanism the compensation committee could use to take into account the contributions made by those who trained others.

9. Leverage informal solutions. Even when the formal elements needed for change are present, the established culture can undermine them if people revert to long-held but unconscious ways of behaving. This is why formal and informal solutions must work together.

A top-tier technology company was trying to inculcate a more customer-centric mind-set after a decade focused on relentlessly cutting costs. Survey diagnostics revealed significant customer dissatisfaction with the quality of the company’s products, which were too often released into the marketplace with significant flaws. A set of new procedures was put in place along with metrics to identify gaps in product development, process quality controls, and cross-teaming at the front lines.

But one of the most powerful solutions was purely cultural and informal—changing the informal motto that governed frontline decision making. The slogan of the cost-cutting era, “Ship by any means,” was replaced by a new aphorism: “If it’s not right, don’t ship it.” Pride builders were enlisted to instill the message that everyone needed to prevent flawed products from going out, even if that meant pulling products apart to check them or slowing down production. By asking people at every level to be responsible for quality—and by celebrating and rewarding improvements—change leaders were able to create an ethic of ownership in the product and vanquish the old ethic: “We just do what we’re told.”

10. Assess and adapt. The Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey revealed that many organizations involved in transformation efforts fail to measure their success before moving on. Leaders are so eager to claim victory that they don’t take the time to find out what’s working and what’s not, and to adjust their next steps accordingly. This failure to follow through results in inconsistency and deprives the organization of needed information about how to support the process of change throughout its life cycle.

A global consumer products company had made a far-ranging commitment to lowering costs. Leaders designed a robust change template and implemented it widely; the metrics indicated that they were succeeding. But the company wanted to be sure that people understood the ongoing nature of this commitment. So they rolled out a series of pulse surveys and convened focus groups to describe the case for change and the new behaviors required of everyone.

The first round of surveys found that only 60 percent of respondents understood the message. The company then called on informal leaders to play a bigger role in evangelizing for the initiative. They continued to run these surveys and focus groups to measure the result until a more sizable majority of the staff had shown they were prepared.

These 10 guiding principles offer a powerful template for leaders committed to effecting sustained transformational change. The work required can be arduous and exacting. But the need for major change initiatives is only going to become more urgent. It behooves us all to get it right.

Reprint No. 00255.

Author Profiles:

DeAnne Aguirre is a senior partner with Strategy& based in San Francisco. She is the co-leader of the firm’s global Katzenbach Center and an expert in culture, leadership, talent effectiveness, and organizational change management. She advises senior executives globally on organizational topics. Micah Alpern is a senior associate with Strategy& based in Chicago and a member of the Katzenbach Center’s operating team. He is an expert in culture transformation and organizational change management. This article is a revision and update of “10 Principles of Change Management,” by John Jones, DeAnne Aguirre, and Matthew Calderone, s+b , Summer 2004. Also contributing to this article was s+b contributing editor Sally Helgesen.

Jon R. Katzenbach, Rutger von Post, and James Thomas, “The Critical Few: Components of a Truly Effective Culture,” s+b , Spring 2014: Putting the best elements of your culture to work in favor of change. Don’t Blame Your Culture : This app includes groundbreaking articles on organizational culture, redesigned exclusively for tablet and e-book reading. For more thought leadership on this topic, see the s+b website at: strategy-business/organizations_and_people.

Simply highlight any text within this article and use the pop-up toolbar to share it via email or on social media.

Applying Lewin’s Change Management Theory to the Implementation of Bar-Coded Medication Administration.

by Karen Sutherland RN BScN.

MSN Student, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment, technological advancements and computer assisted devices can challenge nurses in many ways. Implementing a change in practice within these environments can produce anxiety or fear of failure in nurses, leading to a resistance to change practice. Medication errors in hospital settings lead to devastating consequences for both nurse and patient that can be reduced significantly through the use of technology that improves patient care and saves time for busy nurses. Bar-coded medication administration is one type of technology that uses a scanning device to compare bar codes on patient identification bands with bar codes on prescribed medications, electronically verifying the medications against the medication records, thereby reducing medication errors significantly. This paper will examine the applicability of using Kurt Lewin’s change management theory as a framework to introduce bar-coded medication technology at a large psychiatric facility. Lewin’s theory can lead to a better understanding of how change affects the organization, identify barriers for successful implementation and is useful for identifying opposing forces that act on human behviour during change, therefore overcoming resistance and leading to acceptance of new technologies by nurses.

Change management, Lewin change theory, Medication errors, Bar-coded Medication Administration.

Introduction.

Medication safety has been identified by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMPC) as a priority among hospitals and long term care facilities since medication errors in hospitals are a serious threat to patient safety. Several studies (Carroll, 2003; Dennison, 2007; DeYoung, Vanderkooi, & Barletta, 2009) indicated that the rates of fatalities associated with medication errors in the United States were greater than 7000 deaths annually, and affected three to five percent of in-hospital patients. The ramifications of medication errors affect all healthcare organizations, resulting in consumer mistrust, increased healthcare costs, and patient injury or death (Carroll, 2003). Medication errors can occur at any stage of the dispensing and administration process but only an estimated five percent are noted in nursing documentation, suggesting that many errors that have not led to serious results are unreported (Wilkins & Shields, 2008).

Several strategies have been introduced to lessen the likelihood of error in the dispensing and/or administration process, including patient identification and electronic medication records. Bar coded medication administration is one such tool that has the potential to reduce medication errors significantly, when used correctly (Carroll, 2003; Dennison, 2007). Patient safety is one of health care’s top priorities and safe medication delivery is an important aspect of total patient care. The current system of medication delivery and administration at our facility involves old medication carts in poor repair and relies on manual checks to ensure the right drug is given to the right patient at the right time, route, site and dosage by the nurse. The psychiatric facility in question is now planning a complete overhaul of the pharmacy system and is incorporating automated dispensing machines, along with electronic medication records and bar coding of medications to modernize their care and improve patient safety. This large project will have the greatest impact on front line nurses, many of whom are skeptical of change or lack confidence in their ability to adapt to new technologies, therefore careful implementation of this project is imperative.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Lewin’s Change Management theory can guide the process of implementing bar-coding medication administration (BCMA) at this large psychiatric facility. Several studies (Bozak, 2003; Lehman, 2008; Spetz, Burgess & Phibbs, 2012) expounded the need for a concise plan and clear communication between nurses and management when implementing a change of this nature. The use of Lewin’s Change Management theory can support nurses through the transitions and identify areas of strengths and resistances prior to implementing change. Without a framework for guidance, new technologies can result in workarounds that threaten patient safety.

The Importance of Bar-Coding.

The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) defines a medication error as “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use”. Medication errors are a common occurrence in healthcare facilities around the globe, with serious consequences resulting in death or harm, increased inpatient days in hospital, erosion of trust between consumer and healthcare organizations, and a great deal of economic expense (Carroll, 2003; Dennison, 2007). The economical impact of medication errors is estimated to be around five thousand dollars per error unless there is legal litigation, when the costs can skyrocket into the millions (Dennison, 2007). No less important, but certainly less discussed, is the harm to nurse morale after being involved in a medication error, potentially leading to lost time from work (Dennison, 2007). While medication errors can occur at any stage in the process, the nurse is often the last line of defense for catching mistakes due to the nature of the administration of meds at the bedside. This can translate into the onus of responsibility being shifted onto the nurse to not only catch drug errors before they occur, but take the blame if they do occur (Wilkins & Shields, 2008).

The ISMPC has worked closely with hospitals, pharmacies and drug companies to address many preventable occurrences ranging from medication reconciliation programs to the standardization of drug names and labeling. The introduction of automated pharmacy dispensing machines, bar-coding and scanning of medications is a national project throughout Canada, aimed at reducing medication errors and ultimately improving patient safety. The technology involved in bar-code scanning also integrates electronic medication records (EMR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) into practice, thereby reducing paper documents and the possibility of transcription errors, ineligible handwriting or missed signatures. BCMA technology consists of bar coded medication packets and bar codes on patient identification bands as well as a scanner attached to a medication cart. The process begins when the nurse uses the scanning device to scan the patient’s identification band then scans the packet of medication being administered. At that time the cart communicates wirelessly with the patient’s electronic medication administration record (MAR) and verifies several elements; that the medication is the correct one ordered for that patient and that the dose, time, route, frequency are correct. Without bar-coding this process is completed manually by the nurse by checking against the paper MAR, verifying these same elements and has been estimated to take up to thirty minutes per patient (Foote & Coleman, 2008) in extreme cases.

With added distractions, complexities of care, and faced paced environments, nurses may inadvertently overlook inconspicuous errors or fail to catch packaging errors, leading to medication mishaps that could have serious consequences. When used correctly, BCMA systems can lessen the chance of medication errors – sometimes reducing medication errors by as much as eighty percent (Carroll, 2003; Foote & Coleman, 2008; Young, Slebodnik & Sands, 2010). The introduction of BCMA technology at our psychiatric facility can improve patient safety and also decrease time spent on medication administration, thereby allowing more time for patient contact. Currently nurses use old medication carts that have worn wheels, broken drawers and some are health and safety hazards. The nurses use paper medication records and must double check medications against the MAR sheets before administering. The facility has recently introduced new computerized swipe access carts that are bar code scanner friendly with the intent to introduce bar coding once the pharmacy department converts to electronic medication dispensing and electronic medication records. While many nurses will welcome this time-saving change, others will feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the change; therefore careful planning and support on the part of the organization will lessen the stress associated with the implementation.

Change Management.

In today’s busy healthcare environment, nurses are expected to keep up with modern integrated technology, often with little say as to how it affects them. As with any new change, ‘buy in’ by front line nurses is essential to a smooth transition of any informatics project, as many nurses can be unsure and resistive to new computer aided devices in practice (Bozak, 2003). Managing change has always been challenging in health care facilities, and new technologies often incite resistance from nurses who already cannot find enough time in their shift to complete patient related tasks. Several common barriers have been identified when implementing a change in procedure of this magnitude including lack of cooperation amongst staff, fear of using new techniques, and resistance to change in hopes that the new technology would just disappear (Spetz, Burgess & Phibbs, 2012). One barrier that could impact the implementation at our psychiatric hospital is the possibility of a patient refusing to wear identification bands, which are necessary for BCMA to work. Other barriers include short cuts that some nurses have adopted to save time, such as pre pouring medications, which contravenes Canadian nursing standards of practice. Several studies identified barriers to successful implementation of BCMA through the use of ‘workarounds”. In one study, researchers found “15 types of BCMA-related workarounds and 31 separate probable causes of the identified workarounds” (Koppel, Wetterneck, Telles & Karsh, 2012).

Workarounds are common and are a unprofessional attempts to circumvent computer failures or save time. They come about through frustration on the part of the nurses when they are unable to find a solution to an immediate problem. Some common workarounds in BCMA include administering medications without scanning the patient’s wristband, placing the wristband on a stationary object such as the end of the bed, scanning medication packages after delivery and administering medications without scanning the medication bar code. For successful implementation of a project as large as bar-coding, careful planning and identification of all barriers are imperative. Not all nurses are comfortable with technology in the work environment, thus they may be resistant to changing practice, or be afraid of failure (Bozak, 2003). It is important to recognize the different educational needs of the various nurses and acknowledge the varying attitudes and stresses the nurses might have. Using Lewin’s Change Management Theory as a framework can strengthen the probability of successful BCMA implementation.

Lewin’s Change Management Theory.

Many health care organizations have used Kurt Lewin’s theory to understand human behaviour as it relates to change and patterns of resistance to change. Also referred to as Lewin’s Force Field Analysis, the model encompasses three distinct phases known as unfreezing, moving and freezing or refreezing (Bozak, 2003). The intention of the model is to identify factors that can impede change from occurring; forces that oppose change often called restraining or ‘static forces’ and forces that promote or drive change, referred to as ‘driving forces’. When health care organizations fully understand what behaviours drive or oppose change, then work to strengthen the positive driving forces, change can occur successfully (Bozak, 2003).

In Lewin’s first ‘unfreezing’ stage, an understanding of the difficulties related to the identified problem are sought and “strategies are developed to strengthen the driving forces and weaken or reduce the restraining forces” (Bozak, 2003, p. 81). Unfreezing involves identifying key players that will be affected by the change and gathering them together to communicate ideas and create lists of all driving and static forces that will affect the project. The second ‘moving’ stage is where the actual change in practice takes place as a result of equalization of the opposing forces, thereby allowing the driving forces to support the change. In this stage, implementation of the project produces the change desired, so it is important to continue to keep lines of communication with the nursing staff open. Finally, once the desired change has occurred, the ‘refreezing’ stage can be used to evaluate the stability of the change and the overall effectiveness within practice.

Application of the change management theory.

Unfreezing Stage.

The first step of Lewin’s Analysis involves identifying the change focus; specifically, implementing a bar-code scanning system of medication delivery at a large psychiatric facility. Key components of this step are communicating with all stakeholders including frontline nurses, managers and administration. Bozak (2003) asserted that it was important that lines of communication remain open and honest, which creates a “sense of security and trust in all those involved with the proposed change” (p. 83). The inclusion of front line staff in planning groups and key decision – making processes promotes a feeling of empowerment that helps to overcome their resistance to the change and enables them to understand the importance of the project and how it will beneficially affect client care.

During the unfreezing stage, round table discussions with the purpose of teasing out the driving and restraining forces will help identify barriers that may need to be overcome. In this facility some restraining forces might be; staff resistance to using computerized devices, the possibility of workarounds, lack of computer experience, lack of trust in the organization, and aversion to using a new system. Driving forces would be the forces that will help move the project to completion such as; adequate financial investment, support from upper level management, potential for ease of use and better time management. The important point here is that this exercise actively engages all parties to work towards accentuating the positive driving forces and diminishing the restraining forces so that BCMA is successfully adopted without the use of dangerous workarounds with full nursing investment in the outcome.

Moving Stage.

The moving stage represents the period of actual change including the planning and implementation stages of the project. Implementing bar coding across the facility will require sustained effort from various teams, some of which include; information technology (IT), pharmacy, clinical information services (CIS), nursing, program managers, clinical nurse educators and administrators. A project of this magnitude will affect all of these departments in different ways, so planning an effective roll out with the assistance and inclusion of all stakeholders is imperative. Bozak (2003) recommended actively involving nursing staff, to create a feeling of ownership of the success of the project. Some areas to consider at this facility are implementation timelines, reliability of the equipment, educational training needs, effects on workflow, organizational culture and leadership (Spetz, Burgess & Phibbs, 2012). It is also important to have a project leader to oversee and monitor a project of this magnitude through all phases. Challenges in this stage may include discovering the use of workarounds that can be resolved through further education.

Refreezing Stage.

In this final stage of Lewin’s theory, the process of freezing or refreezing the changed practice occurs and leads to a time of “stability and evaluation” (Bozak, 2003, p. 84). Ongoing support of the nurses on the frontline and technology support to all stakeholders should continue until the change is deemed complete and all users are comfortable with the technology. Once completed and fully operational, an evaluation and summary of problems encountered, successes realized, and challenges encountered throughout the project should be done, for future reference.

Conclusão.

With any project of this magnitude, it is imperative to have a complete plan in place for ultimate success. Using Lewin’s Change Management theory to guide the implementation of BCMA at this large psychiatric facility can help to promote acceptance by frontline nurses by involving them in all aspects of the planning and implementation. Creating this ‘buy in’ from frontline nurses builds autonomy and ownership of the project, ultimately leading to success. The use of brainstorming round table discussions to identify driving and resisting forces is a first step in this process. Addressing restraining forces helps to promote adoption to ensure the smooth implementation of the BCMA resulting in reduced medication errors. Often, nurses are forced to change practice without having the opportunity to give input, which has eroded their trust of the organization over time. By using Lewin’s theory, we can help reduce stakeholder resistance and fear of change through the development of a well thought plan and active participation in the change process.

Referências.

Bozak, M., (2003). Using Lewin’s force field analysis in implementing a nursing information system. Computers, Informatics, Nursing , 21(2), pp.80-85.

Carroll P. (2003). Medication errors: The bigger picture. R N, 66 (1), 52-58.

Dennison, R. (2007). A medication safety education program to reduce the risk of harm caused by medication errors. Journal Of Continuing Education In Nursing , 38(4), 176-184.

DeYoung, J., Vanderkooi, M., & Barletta, J. (2009). Effect of bar-code-assisted medication administration on medication error rates in an adult medical intensive care unit. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 66(12), 1110-1115. doi:10.2146/ajhp080355.

Foote, S. O., & Coleman, J. R. (2008). Medication administration: The implementation process of bar-coding for medication administration to enhance medication safety. Nursing Economics, 26 (3), 207-210.

Koppel, R., Wetterneck, T., Telles, J. L., & Karsh, B., (2008). Workarounds to barcode medication administration systems: Their occurrences, Causes, and threats to patient safety. Journal of American Medical Information Association, 15, 408-423. doi: 10.1197/jamia. M2616.

Institute of Safe Medication Practices Canada, 2012. Retrieved from ismp-canada/index. htm.

Lehman, K., (2008). Change management: magic or mayhem. Journal for Nurses in Staff Development , 24(4), 176-184.

Rack, L., Dudjak, L., & Wolf, G., (2011). Study of Nurse Workarounds in a Hospital Using Bar Code Medication Administration System. Journal of Nursing Care Quality. 27(3) 232-239. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0b013e318240a854.

Spetz, J., Burgess, J. F., & Phibbs, C. S. (2012). What determines successful implementation of inpatient information technology systems? The American Journal of Managed Care, 18 (3), 157-162.

The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error reporting and Prevention, (2012). Retrieved from nccmerp/

Wilkins, K. & Shields, M., (2008). Correlates of medication error in hospitals. Statistics Canada . Retrieved from statcan. gc. ca/pub/82-003-x/2008002/article/10565-eng. htm.

Author Biography.

Karen Sutherland RN BScN CPMHN(C) is a first year Masters of Nursing Student at Memorial University. She works at a large psychiatric hospital in Ontario as a nurse educator/practice lead, specializing in forensic mental health nursing. She completed her post RN BScN degree at Laurentian University in Ontario in 2009 and her RN diploma from George Brown College, Toronto Ontario in 1983. Most recently, she obtained her Canadian Nurses Association Specialty Certificate in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing.

10 Principles of Leading Change Management.

These time-honored tools and techniques can help companies transform quickly. And watch the video, “How to Lead Change Management.”

Illustration by Lo Cole.

Since the mid-2000s, organizational change management and transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the chopping block, and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, firms have become more sophisticated in the best practices for organizational change management. They are far more sensitive to and more keenly aware of the role that culture plays. They’ve also had to get much better on their follow-through.

Yet according to a 2013 Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey of global senior executives on culture and change management, the success rate of major change initiatives is only 54 percent. This is far too low. The costs are high when change efforts go wrong—not only financially but in confusion, lost opportunity, wasted resources, and diminished morale. When employees who have endured real upheaval and put in significant extra hours for an initiative that was announced with great fanfare see it simply fizzle out, cynicism sets in.

How to Lead Change Management.

DeAnne Aguirre, senior partner with Strategy&, discusses techniques that can help companies transform quickly and effectively.

Our experience with organizational change management suggests that there are three major hurdles to overcome. The first—no surprise—is “change fatigue,” the exhaustion that sets in when people feel pressured to make too many transitions at once. A full 65 percent of respondents to the Katzenbach Center survey reported this as a problem. The change initiatives they suffered through may have been poorly thought through, rolled out too fast, or put in place without sufficient preparation. Fatigue is a familiar problem in organizational change management, especially when splashy “whole new day” initiatives are driven from the top.

Change initiatives also flounder, according to 48 percent of the respondents, because companies lack the skills to ensure that change can be sustained over time. Leaders might set out eagerly to raise product quality, but when production schedules slow and the pipeline starts looking sparse, they lose heart. Lacking an effective way to deal with production line problems, they decide their targets were unrealistic, they blame the production technology, or they accuse their frontline people of not being up to the task. A much better way to solve the problem is to invest in operational improvements, such as process design and training, to instill new practical approaches and give people the knowledge and cultural support they need.

The third major obstacle is that transformation efforts are typically decided upon, planned, and implemented in the C-suite, with little input from those at lower levels. This filters out information that could be helpful in designing the initiative while also limiting opportunities to get frontline ownership of the change. In the Katzenbach Center survey, 44 percent of participants reported not understanding the changes they were expected to make, and 38 percent said they didn’t agree with the changes.

The following list of 10 guiding principles for change can help executives navigate the treacherous shoals of transformation in a systematic way.

1. Lead with the culture. Lou Gerstner, who as chief executive of IBM led one of the most successful business transformations in history, said the most important lesson he learned from the experience was that “culture is everything.” Businesspeople today understand this. In the Katzenbach Center survey, 84 percent said that the organization’s culture was critical to the success of change management, and 64 percent saw it as more critical than strategy or operating model. Yet change leaders often fail to address culture—in terms of either overcoming cultural resistance or making the most of cultural support. Among respondents whose companies were unable to sustain change over time, a startling 76 percent reported that executives failed to take account of the existing culture when designing the transformation effort.

Skilled change managers make the most of their company’s existing culture.

Why would this be true, given the widespread recognition of culture’s importance? Perhaps it’s because change management designers view their company’s culture as the legacy of a past from which they want to move on. Or they get so focused on structural details—reporting lines, decision rights, and formal processes—that they forget that human beings with strong emotional connections to the culture will be enacting these changes. Or they assume that culture, because it is “soft” and informal, will be malleable enough to adapt without requiring explicit attention.

Yet skilled change managers, conscious of organizational change management best practices, always make the most of their company’s existing culture. Instead of trying to change the culture itself, they draw emotional energy from it. They tap into the way people already think, behave, work, and feel to provide a boost to the change initiative. To use this emotional energy, leaders must look for the elements of the culture that are aligned to the change, bring them to the foreground, and attract the attention of the people who will be affected by the change.

In two healthcare companies undergoing a merger, culture led the post-deal integration. Using a culture-related diagnostic questionnaire, the change management team asked people to describe each company’s operating style—and mapped the responses from the two legacy companies to get a sense of their combined strengths and challenges. It quickly became clear that where one company had a culture attuned to bottom-line results, the other tended to focus on process. Optimally, the new company would need to skillfully use processes to deliver clear results. By first taking the time to recognize and acknowledge each company’s underlying culture, leaders of the merged firm harnessed deeply ingrained strengths to energize the change and avoided the incoherence that could have resulted from a less intentional and sensitive redesign.

2. Start at the top. Although it’s important to engage employees at every level early on, all successful change management initiatives start at the top, with a committed and well-aligned group of executives strongly supported by the CEO. This alignment can’t be taken for granted. Rather, work must be done in advance to ensure that everyone agrees about the case for the change and the particulars for implementing it.

A clinical research firm was committed to tripling its size over the next decade to achieve a more competitive position. Because the company was still pretty much operating as a startup after 25 years, this required a far-reaching organizational redesign. Before starting the design phase, finance leaders gathered at an off-site meeting to begin a rigorous exercise in alignment. The exercise included a leadership team effectiveness survey, which revealed that though these leaders called themselves a team, they didn’t really see themselves that way. Instead, they mostly operated as lone rangers, in characteristic startup style.

Each of the executives in the group made a thoughtful individual presentation about the case for change. Most of them agreed on the general direction the company needed to take to achieve rapid growth. But their descriptions of how to move in that direction—for example, what the first concrete steps should be—were all over the map. They were then tasked to work together to develop a case for change that every one of them could support.

To hammer out these agreements, these top executives had to listen closely to their colleagues and weigh conflicting points of view. The exercise was demanding, but they began to coalesce around a coherent vision for what the company should look like in 10 years. Most importantly, the experience of working together so intensely led the executives, for once, to act as a collaborative and committed team. By the end of the off-site meeting, they found that they were all using the same language to describe what the company needed to do. As one participant noted, the experience had transformed him , which in turn gave him confidence that together they could cascade the plan to other groups at other levels of the hierarchy.

3. Involve every layer. Strategic planners often fail to take into account the extent to which midlevel and frontline people can make or break a change initiative. The path of rolling out change is immeasurably smoother if these people are tapped early for input on issues that will affect their jobs. Frontline people tend to be rich repositories of knowledge about where potential glitches may occur, what technical and logistical issues need to be addressed, and how customers may react to changes. In addition, their full-hearted engagement can smooth the way for complex change initiatives, whereas their resistance will make implementation an ongoing challenge.

Planners who resist early engagement at multiple levels of the hierarchy often do so because they believe that the process will be more efficient if fewer people are involved in planning. But although it may take longer in the beginning, ensuring broad involvement saves untold headaches later on. Not only does more information surface, but people are more invested when they’ve had a hand in developing a plan. One common aphorism in change management is “you have to go slow to go fast.”

IBM recognized the need for such an approach in 2003, when rolling out a new initiative on culture. The leadership team had met intensively to develop clear definitions of the cultural traits the organization would require going forward. They then declared a “values jam,” a website set up for a 72-hour period, where anyone in the company could post comments, responses, suggestions, and concerns. Leaders then made key changes based on the feedback they received and communicated clearly how the input they’d received was being incorporated.

4. Make the rational and emotional case together. Leaders will often make the case for major change on the sole basis of strategic business objectives such as “we will enter new markets” or “we will grow 20 percent a year for the next three years.” Such objectives are fine as far as they go, but they rarely reach people emotionally in a way that ensures genuine commitment to the cause. Human beings respond to calls to action that engage their hearts as well as their minds, making them feel as if they’re part of something consequential.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman and her senior executive team appear to be following this principle in their transformation efforts. They have sought to activate a strong personal connection between HP and its employees, by drawing directly on the company’s cultural history and traditions. For example, through symbolic gestures such as tearing down the fences that surrounded the executive parking lot and moving top executives into cubicles, the company has reinforced the original “HP Way” ethic in which the intrinsic quality of the work is as important as one’s position in the hierarchy. (Whitman tells this story in an April 2013 LinkedIn blog post, “The Power of Transparent Communication.”) This strategy contrasts with that of Whitman’s immediate predecessors, who had declared it was time for the company to abandon its core identity. In any organization facing a challenging environment, the emotional connection fostered by moves like these is likely to make a major difference.

5. Act your way into new thinking. Many change initiatives seem to assume that people will begin to shift their behaviors once formal elements like directives and incentives have been put in place. People who work together on cross-functional teams will start collaborating because the lines on the chart show they are supposed to do so. Managers will become clear communicators because they have a mandate to deliver a message about the new strategy.

Yet lines on a chart and bold statements of intent have only so much impact. Far more critical to the success of any change initiative is ensuring that people’s daily behaviors reflect the imperative of change. Start by defining a critical few behaviors that will be essential to the success of the initiative. Then conduct everyday business with those behaviors front and center. Senior leaders must visibly model these new behaviors themselves, right from the start, because employees will believe real change is occurring only when they see it happening at the top of the company.

Leaders of a major global manufacturer seeking to escape bankruptcy believed the company had lost touch with customers because of entrenched problems in its culture. Managers operated in an overly layered system without much accountability. They were ponderous, risk averse, insular, and prone to spending time on approvals and office politics. Instead of implementing a dramatic, full-scale turnaround, the change team demanded that leaders adopt three specific behaviors:

Make major, visible decisions in days instead of weeks or months. Spend time with people at the frontline leadership (supervisory) level, asking for their input and engaging them in frank discussions. Ensure the middle and lower ranks have direct contact with real-life customers.

Because these behavioral shifts were both limited and clearly spelled out, they were implemented quickly. Leaders were asked to act “as if” the organization did things this way, rather than trying to think their way out of old ways of being. These behaviors accelerated the company’s passage out of bankruptcy, which occurred ahead of schedule.

6. Engage, engage, engage. Leaders often make the mistake of imagining that if they convey a strong message of change at the start of an initiative, people will understand what to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Powerful and sustained change requires constant communication, not only throughout the rollout but after the major elements of the plan are in place. The more kinds of communication employed, the more effective they are, which is why HP’s tearing down that fence was so important: Symbols reinforce the impact of words.

A global publisher undertook a major initiative to become more digital, putting in place far-reaching structural changes. The top leaders decided to engage people throughout the company at a variety of levels. First, they convened a series of town halls where large groups were given the news and invited to ask how the company-wide shift would affect them. Executives followed this with function-wide meetings where people could learn, for example, about the prospective impact on finance or human resources. The company also offered a version of fireside conversations they called “PIE chats” (PIE stood for performance, innovation, and execution). Finally, an internal trade fair was planned to showcase what various teams were doing to make the company more digital. This multifaceted and ongoing communications effort kept the message alive, giving every employee an understanding of the change and a stake in the outcome.

7. Lead outside the lines. Change has the best chance of cascading through an organization when everyone with authority and influence is involved. In addition to those who hold formal positions of power—the company’s recognized leaders—this group includes people whose power is more informal and is related to their expertise, to the breadth of their network, or to personal qualities that engender trust.

We call these informal leaders “special forces.” They can be found throughout any organization. They might include a well-respected field supervisor, an innovative project manager, or a receptionist who’s been at the firm for 25 years. Companies that succeed at implementing major change identify these people early and find ways to involve them as participants and guides. There are three distinct kinds of informal leaders:

• Pride builders are great at motivating others and inspiring them to take pride in their work. People influenced by them feel good about working for the organization and have a desire to go above and beyond.

• Trusted nodes are go-to people. They are repositories of the organization’s culture. They are the ones approached by people who want to know what’s really happening in the organization—for example, when they’re trying to figure out if those leading a change initiative are actually going to follow through.

• Change or culture ambassadors know, as if by instinct, how to live the change the organization is making. They serve as both exemplars and communicators, spreading the word about why change is important.

Informal leaders must be identified before they can be engaged. The best way to do this in a large organization is to run a network analysis. By mapping out connections and seeing who people talk to, you can complement the formal org chart with one that enables you to lead outside the lines.

8. Leverage formal solutions. Persuading people to change their behavior won’t suffice for transformation unless formal elements—such as structure, reward systems, ways of operating, training, and development—are redesigned to support them. Many companies fall short in this area.

A law firm tried to professionalize its clubby culture, which clients perceived as inwardly focused. The lead partner group recognized that associates needed more formal mentoring and development. The existing system, in which partners who headed the practice groups conducted all the training, had led to uneven results. So the transformation team created a development committee and put out a call for experienced staff members willing to work with new hires. The team was delighted when a strong group of contributors volunteered and put in the time required to design a robust development program and start engaging associates.

After a strong start, however, the effort faltered; people who had been enthusiastic fell away. Debriefing those involved, leadership identified the problem: No formal mechanisms were in place to support or reward this participation. Calculations for bonuses left development work out of the equation, and although senior partners paid lip service to the “wonderful work” the development committee was doing, they seemed to regard its members as internal volunteers. Once they recognized this problem, the firm’s leaders enacted substantial policy changes, starting with a mechanism the compensation committee could use to take into account the contributions made by those who trained others.

9. Leverage informal solutions. Even when the formal elements needed for change are present, the established culture can undermine them if people revert to long-held but unconscious ways of behaving. This is why formal and informal solutions must work together.

A top-tier technology company was trying to inculcate a more customer-centric mind-set after a decade focused on relentlessly cutting costs. Survey diagnostics revealed significant customer dissatisfaction with the quality of the company’s products, which were too often released into the marketplace with significant flaws. A set of new procedures was put in place along with metrics to identify gaps in product development, process quality controls, and cross-teaming at the front lines.

But one of the most powerful solutions was purely cultural and informal—changing the informal motto that governed frontline decision making. The slogan of the cost-cutting era, “Ship by any means,” was replaced by a new aphorism: “If it’s not right, don’t ship it.” Pride builders were enlisted to instill the message that everyone needed to prevent flawed products from going out, even if that meant pulling products apart to check them or slowing down production. By asking people at every level to be responsible for quality—and by celebrating and rewarding improvements—change leaders were able to create an ethic of ownership in the product and vanquish the old ethic: “We just do what we’re told.”

10. Assess and adapt. The Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey revealed that many organizations involved in transformation efforts fail to measure their success before moving on. Leaders are so eager to claim victory that they don’t take the time to find out what’s working and what’s not, and to adjust their next steps accordingly. This failure to follow through results in inconsistency and deprives the organization of needed information about how to support the process of change throughout its life cycle.

A global consumer products company had made a far-ranging commitment to lowering costs. Leaders designed a robust change template and implemented it widely; the metrics indicated that they were succeeding. But the company wanted to be sure that people understood the ongoing nature of this commitment. So they rolled out a series of pulse surveys and convened focus groups to describe the case for change and the new behaviors required of everyone.

The first round of surveys found that only 60 percent of respondents understood the message. The company then called on informal leaders to play a bigger role in evangelizing for the initiative. They continued to run these surveys and focus groups to measure the result until a more sizable majority of the staff had shown they were prepared.

These 10 guiding principles offer a powerful template for leaders committed to effecting sustained transformational change. The work required can be arduous and exacting. But the need for major change initiatives is only going to become more urgent. It behooves us all to get it right.

Reprint No. 00255.

Author Profiles:

DeAnne Aguirre is a senior partner with Strategy& based in San Francisco. She is the co-leader of the firm’s global Katzenbach Center and an expert in culture, leadership, talent effectiveness, and organizational change management. She advises senior executives globally on organizational topics. Micah Alpern is a senior associate with Strategy& based in Chicago and a member of the Katzenbach Center’s operating team. He is an expert in culture transformation and organizational change management. This article is a revision and update of “10 Principles of Change Management,” by John Jones, DeAnne Aguirre, and Matthew Calderone, s+b , Summer 2004. Also contributing to this article was s+b contributing editor Sally Helgesen.

Jon R. Katzenbach, Rutger von Post, and James Thomas, “The Critical Few: Components of a Truly Effective Culture,” s+b , Spring 2014: Putting the best elements of your culture to work in favor of change. Don’t Blame Your Culture : This app includes groundbreaking articles on organizational culture, redesigned exclusively for tablet and e-book reading. For more thought leadership on this topic, see the s+b website at: strategy-business/organizations_and_people.

Simply highlight any text within this article and use the pop-up toolbar to share it via email or on social media.

Humanizing change: Developing more effective change management strategies Deloitte Review issue 19.

Research shows that most large change management efforts fail. Por quê? Something’s been left out of the equation: the human element. Organizations can draw on new behavioral economics lessons to powerfully connect change to human behavior—and keep employees engaged in the process.

Another false start? (Chapter one)

The CEO of a mid-sized financial services firm was notorious for announcing sweeping change and never following through to ensure successful completion. He hired a new CFO to oversee and manage the implementation of a new financial system. This new system would require not only a process change but also a culture change: Employees would need to shift their perceptions of the firm’s finances. The CFO quickly became frustrated that many of his peers were not moving forward to adopt the new technology and process changes, despite the CEO’s insistence that the shift was critical to the firm’s long-term survival. When the CFO questioned his peers, one remarked, “I am just waiting it out. This is just another false start.”

Traditional organizational change programs face headwinds.

Change management programs are facing increasing criticism in both academic and mainstream management circles—not to mention in break rooms and boardrooms across America. 1 While research shows that nearly 70 percent of large-scale change initiatives fail to meet their long-term goals, 2 every day, another CEO sets in motion another large-scale change initiative in an attempt to refocus and redirect employee behavior. It’s no wonder employees are experiencing change fatigue—an overall sense of apathy or passive resignation toward organizational change 3 — at almost the same pace as the failure rate of change management initiatives. And even though many executives recognize the need to change the way we approach change management, most existing resources are still recommending traditional behavior-reinforcement techniques, such as the use of rewards like pay-for-performance. 4 (See sidebar, “Understanding what motivates us.”)

Why such a disconnect? Most change management programs begin with a fundamentally flawed assumption: that all parties involved in the change share an overwhelming common interest. 5 Power dynamics, contextual considerations, and resistance to change are underestimated and even considered anomalous. 6 As a result, no one mentions “many of the emotional and political issues that frequently preoccupy real people in real organizations” during times of change. 7 And after all, organizational change means changing human behavior, notwithstanding little evidence suggesting that behavior can be pliable or predictable. 8

Receive insights on behavioral economics and management.

Learn about Deloitte Human Capital.

Explore the full collection.

In addition, the 2008–09 financial crisis shifted the focus of change management in many organizations. Many of today’s organizational changes aim for reduction, efficiencies, and competitiveness rather than growth. 9 This equates to regular budget and staff cuts—and seemingly endless restructuring. Given these trends, change fatigue is unsurprising and, in fact, an entirely rational response.

While weary observers often describe change in terms of false starts, resistance, and fatigue, we believe change can change for the better. It starts with acknowledging that something is lacking in most change management initiatives: the human behavior element. Further, to make large-scale transformations more effective — and more rewarding—organizations need to find ways to link their change management efforts to the emerging lessons of behavioral economics.

Another false start? (Chapter two)

The newly hired CFO was determined to create a compelling case for change. The firm, still in the red a few years after the ’08 crisis, desperately needed a fresh culture around finances, so he put together a case based on numbers and economics. The incentive was simple carrot-and-stick: If you adopt this change, the firm will become more profitable, and bonuses will rise—doesn’t everyone want to make more money? He launched his initiative with the mantra “Act like an owner,” offering educational materials on how the firm makes money. The logic was solid and the communication plan airtight—and yet a year passed with little change around the way his peers and employees approached finances. Indeed, in some areas spending actually rose. Wasn’t everyone interested in earning money?

Tuning out rational change interventions.

How do organizations develop traditional change management programs in the first place? Typically, in attempting to get an entire workforce on board, programs rely heavily on rational (cost/benefit) appeals based on neoclassical economics, largely ignoring human psychology and social factors. 10 Many managers turn to spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks, along with extrinsic motivations (dangling carrots), throughout a change process. This assumes that we are fully rational beings seeking to maximize our utility—which, of course, is rarely the case, however much we’d like to believe it is.

Increasingly, the growing field of behavioral economics is challenging these long-held beliefs, demonstrating that logical appeals are often ineffective because they fail to account for irrationality in human behavior. And people definitely do not always behave rationally: Psychology research suggests that our beliefs, attitudes, and social norms often influence our willingness to change, regardless of whether they conflict with the single-minded ideal of maximizing our utility. 11 Therefore, our motivation to change is much more complex than a stick-and-carrot metaphor. 12.

If simply applying extrinsic rewards doesn’t work to effect sustained change, what would be the better alternative? To answer that, let’s look at the pervasive role that underlying belief systems play in human behavior. Motivational theorist David Dunning explains why belief systems are so powerful: “People desire to live in a world that they can understand, explain, and predict, which means they are pressed to build beliefs that dispel chaos and uncertainty and thus seek out meaning and coherence from the maelstrom of events they experience.” 13.

These underlying belief systems evolve over time to create mental models—the way one interprets the world—which we work hard to protect and confirm. 14 In an effort to maintain order and consistency, we favor the status quo rather than pursue change simply because change is unpleasant and stressful, often creating cognitive dissonance, a state of discomfort created when new information contradicts existing beliefs. Change introduces a new way of thinking, and most of us unconsciously try to make it fit within what we already know rather than revamp our underlying assumptions. As a result, we engage what is called “System 1” thinking, 15 in which we apply general rules and use mental shortcuts to make decisions and process information quickly. These shortcuts, or “heuristics,” are often predicated on inconsistent psychological forces that undermine our ability to accurately interpret the change around us. 16.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT MOTIVATES US.

Behaviorist B. F. Skinner introduced a relatively simple model of behavior change in the 1950s that was based on the premise that consciousness was irrelevant to understanding human behavior. Skinner’s model rejected any sort of introspection—instead, it showed how to effectively reward and reinforce good behavior and correct bad behavior. It offered a cause-and-effect message: If you do this, then you will get that . Many of our performance management systems still operate under this model; you see it with pay-for-performance programs, for example. This theory aligns well with traditional economic thinking that people respond positively to incentives, making decisions that maximize their own utility, irrespective of beliefs and social pressures.

But notwithstanding occasional short-term successes with pay-for-performance plans, advances in behavioral and neurosciences have shown that, in the long term, applying Skinner’s model of external reinforcement may actually dampen our intrinsic motivations, crowding out our ideals and social incentives. For example, in measuring the success of people losing weight, wearing a seatbelt, or quitting smoking, studies show those in the “reward” groups performing better early on but faring far worse in the long run than those in the “no-reward” groups. Another study found that when parents were charged a fine for picking up their children late, their on-time performance actually fell . The study replaced social pressure to be on time with money, a much less effective motivator. 17.

The hidden cost of extrinsic rewards is that they lower intrinsic motivations for undertaking similar performance in the future and, soon after, can actually have a negative effect on behavior and performance. Therefore, you may want to think twice before looking to a Skinner-inspired incentive-pay model to drive long-term change management.

The pragmatic consequence of all this: When you ask employees to change, you are demanding something ambitious—asking them to change their mental model of how the organization should work. This requires engaging in “System 2” thinking, which is where much more thoughtful deliberation occurs, to reshape and even challenge an existing belief system. But when confronted with new information, System 1 automatically creates a picture of what we know, often ignoring information that conflicts with our assumptions, while filling in missing information based on what our mental models interpret to be true (figure 1). 18 This is why simply making a rational, incentive-based case for change often fails to win over employees. 19 It is likely falling on only partially listening ears.

Understanding what’s happening beneath the surface.

We know that employees can be inspired to tackle big challenges. So why do we bludgeon them with chart-packed PowerPoint slides? The PowerPoint approach to change undermines employees’ intrinsic drivers and psychological needs: Employees are treated as targets rather than participatory agents who help interpret and shape the change process. When work is simple and proposed change is within employees’ comfort zone, extrinsic means are likely sufficient. But the more complex the work, the greater intrinsic drive is needed to move change forward. 20.

Research suggests that people can be inspired to change, even in trying circumstances, when leadership can meet their psychological needs of autonomy , growth , and meaning . The problem is that charts and slides rarely address these needs. Here’s a breakdown of how organizations can better satisfy these needs during change efforts:

Autonomy: Psychologist Ron Friedman explains, “When people are empowered to make their own decisions at work, they naturally feel motivated to excel for one simple reason: Autonomy is a basic psychological need.” 21 While managers may have trouble observing autonomy in action, data analytics can help. Ask your employees, “Does this change provide you greater freedom to perform your role? Does this change provide more opportunity to be creative in your approach?” Threatening this psychological need often inspires resistance—and, ultimately, defiance.

UNDERSTANDING THE WAY WE THINK.

Behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman’s groundbreaking work in Thinking, Fast and Slow describes the way we think and make decisions. System 1 represents those fast, automatic thoughts we continually process, often without our awareness. As Kahneman describes it, “The capabilities of System 1 include innate skills that we share with other animals. We are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognize objects, orient attention, avoid losses, and fear spiders.” With System 2, we engage in much more complex thinking than in System 1: We concentrate more deliberately on the potential outcomes, and generally come to more rational conclusions. Examples of System 2 at work include parallel parking, solving complex math problems, and trying to untangle the plot of the television show Lost . The problem with System 1, according to Kahneman, is that it “makes us see the world as more tidy, simple, predictable, and coherent than it really is.” As a result, we rely heavily on error-prone mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make decisions. (For a more thorough discussion on heuristics, see the Deloitte University Press article Behavioral strategy to combat choice overload .) 22 This tendency to rely on heuristics is then amplified by the growing complexity that many employees face during large-scale change initiatives. (Adapted from the Deloitte Review article “Think slower: How behavioral science can improve decision making in the workplace.”) 23.

Growth : An unintended consequence of simplifying and increasing efficiencies in the workplace is that it can conflict with an employee’s need for growth. Too many unchallenging tasks leave workers bored and stuck in System 1 thinking. To keep an employee engaged in the change process, consider whether the change offers employees new challenges and responsibilities. Learning increases our production of dopamine, which heightens our mood 24 — and makes work more interesting. This is likely why research has found that employees are most engaged when stretching their skills and building expertise. 25 Therefore, consider how the proposed change initiative might include growth opportunities, assessing whether the initiative will promote or limit employees’ ability to acquire new skills.

Meaning : In today’s knowledge economy, it can be easy to lose sight of the value of work, since, unlike craftsmen or laborers, we tend to have mostly emails, task lists, and meeting attendance to show for our day’s work. Meaning becomes less about the task and more about the conditions and people we build around it. Change, then, should become less about a process and more about an outcome that generates value. Employees will be skeptical if they see little meaning or value in the perceived change. Conversely, work becomes more meaningful when we can see beyond the day-to-day and connect with a benefit for ourselves and those we care about.

If these principles of behavioral economics might make the difference in successfully executing an organizational change process, how do we effectively leverage them to transform change management as we know it? Here’s where recent advancements in data analytical tools can play a pivotal role.

Changing minds through data analytics and behavioral science.

Today’s big-data environment puts more information at our fingertips than ever before. While most people identify big data with large-scale customer outreach programs, the information can be directed toward internal goals as well, in efforts often referred to as “people analytics.” With people analytics, organizations can mine enterprise-wide data to understand employee perceptions and solicit real-time feedback.

Here are three ways in which an organization’s internal data can enable more transparent, evidence-based change management initiatives:

Identify change champions : The Deloitte Review article “HR for Humans” discusses how HR can use data analytics in hiring to find the right employees for an organization’s specific needs. 26 These principles can be applied to structuring internal teams, allowing leaders to more accurately identify people likely to flourish within the new change management processes. Organizations can develop predictive models that factor in work samples, cognitive tests, and interview data to predict job performance. Consider using data analytics to recruit the right type of team members to help lead large-scale initiatives.

Uncover what works : Firms can harness organization-wide data to determine what works and scale around those efforts. For example, internal metadata may inform what collaborations advance or impede the change initiatives under way. One of the most prevalent types of metadata—the data generated by email, which includes information on how often departments interact on projects as well as working structures—can provide a window into an organization’s social networks. Figure 2 depicts a hypothetical visualization, showing the potential disconnect between the leadership team and operations group based on the metadata generated in an email database. A number of studies reveal that large collaboration networks, often uncovered by organizational metadata, outperform groups of individuals that choose to work independently. 27

Advancing this further, leaders can leverage sociometric data, such as data captured through employee badges that measure nonverbal communication, for change management projects to predict and identify high-performance traits among employees. This data can also help identify communication bottlenecks, team structure inefficiencies, and office layout configurations that lead to knowledge silos. A European bank used sociometric data to uncover inefficiencies: Analysis revealed that floor layouts largely dictated a team’s communication patterns, employees’ attitudes, and even level of trust toward others. Using this information, executives altered the bank’s use of floor space to incorporate design elements promoting open collaboration, even tying bonuses to group efforts; overall performance rose by 10 percent. 28.

Check the pulse of the change initiative : Simple, low-effort surveys, sometimes called “pulse surveys,” can inform employee sentiment throughout a change management process in near real time. These quick-turnaround feedback mechanisms give organizations a line of sight into what is—or is not—working almost at the moment the feelings manifest. For organizations with numerous change initiatives under way, gaining quick feedback is essential to remain agile in these dynamic environments. And using pulse surveys during a change effort can have benefits beyond their ability to provide feedback. In its research, Culture Amp, a software company that develops quick surveys to regularly measure employee sentiment, 29 found that regularly gathering employees’ views results in a more engaged workforce.

Another false start? (Chapter three)

Since the CFO was a numbers guy, he asked for demographic analyses, workplace behavioral preferences, and engagement metrics. As he reviewed the results, three things glared back from the page. The first was that the majority of employees were motivated to work for a leader and a cause; they were looking to support something or someone that would bring about a collective change greater than themselves. Second, the “act like an owner” mantra fell flat: It was too vague and didn’t easily translate to employees’ daily work. Last, while the CFO had touted the change in terms of larger bonuses, most employees were much more concerned with their rising health care costs and flat base salaries. Fortunately, armed with these insights, the CFO now had a solid basis for rethinking the change campaign, and he began to look for opportunities to connect with the local community, broadening the firm’s impact. He hosted a coffee hour, where employees could informally discuss concerns or share successes, and left his office at least once a day to hear firsthand how employees were doing. In short, he focused less on the numbers and more on connecting employees to a leader and cause.

Three things to consider the next time you embark on a change initiative.

Organizations can adopt three strategies to “humanize” organizational change, aiming to help their change initiatives deliver the desired results (figure 3).

Identify your employees’ belief systems by using an evidence-based approach to change . The best marketing campaigns and product launches spend months beforehand understanding the consumer’s needs, desires, and habits. Organizations should consider taking this same rigorous approach with their employee base before launching a big change initiative. Consider that, when product managers are asked, “What is your research supporting these claims?” the typical response is: “We haven’t done the research yet, but we know anecdotally that it works.” The researchers behind this finding say this is why 75 percent of new product launches fail. 30 Lack of adequate research could also explain why change management typically has the same failure rate. Think back to the CFO who assumed that employees working in the financial services industry were motivated by money—a logical assumption that data proved to be flawed.

One way to counteract flawed assumptions is by employing an evidence-based approach to understand underlying beliefs and, ultimately, behaviors. Expedia, for instance, lives by a “test and learn” consumer philosophy. 31 Last year alone, the company ran a total of 1,750 A/B tests to determine differences between a change and the status quo. The aggregated data provides Expedia with compelling evidence on what consumers want and how to best communicate to them. Rather than debate change, Expedia now tests it and uses the data to inform the best course of action.

It matters what you say: Frame the change beyond PowerPoint slides. When a change management initiative fails, the blame often falls on failure to communicate. This is probably because most organizations use a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating change: a rational economic cost/benefit analysis. Some will respond to such a sticks-and-carrots message, but it will likely fail to motivate most employees to embrace change. 32.

Increasingly, leaders recognize the value of storytelling as an effective way to communicate change. John Kotter and Dan Cohen offer this example: 33 An employee of a large manufacturer saw the company’s purchasing process as ineffective and out of control; this employee noticed, for example, that the firm purchased 424 different kinds of gloves, with any given pair costing between $5 and $17, depending on the vendor. The number of gloves, and their varying price points for identical pairs, had become an accounting nightmare. To convey the problem, the employee skipped PowerPoint slides and instead set up all 424 gloves, with price tags, in the boardroom. The executive team were appalled by what they saw and immediately initiated a process change. In order to change mental models, we sometimes need to actually see a problem come to life.

Change becomes more human when it becomes a social experience rather than a top-down initiative.

Further, when framing change, it’s vital to identify and communicate how it will offer employees more autonomy and control. The question to ask is, “Does this promote or take away our employees’ sense of freedom at work?” The behavioral literature suggests that people are loss averse : We hate losing twice as much as we enjoy winning. 34 Therefore, when a new change process is announced, employees may ask themselves, “Will my skill set become obsolete?” or, “How much time will I have to waste to onboard?” 35 In this spirit, whenever possible, look to frame the messaging in terms of what employees will gain. Highlight the professional development opportunities or the process efficiencies that the change initiative will deliver.

Change is social : Most of us want to help our peers succeed. A powerful way to change mental models comes from social learning experiences. Research suggests that in order for work to feel meaningful, there needs to be a connection between what we do and the well-being of others. 36 The practical upshot: Rather than thinking of change in terms of processes and tasks, it can often be more meaningful to connect the change with the people behind those tasks.

A large aerospace manufacturer revamped its entire inventory process, sending out new process guides and holding multiple training sessions on the new system of keeping track of parts. But a core group of engineers deemed the new process cumbersome and saw little value in adopting these new procedures, so they didn’t. Their noncompliance negatively affected the accounts payable department, who found themselves staying late to reconcile the variances. Rather than host another training session, company leaders had a better idea, drawing on the power of storytelling and social experiences. They invited employees from engineering and from accounts payable to an offsite location and used whiteboards to visually represent the new process, pinpointing the high and lows of what employees were experiencing. As the engineers began to put faces to names, leaders could see mental models shifting. The motivation to adopt the process was no longer so the organization could become more efficient—it was so their colleague from the accounts payable department could go home on time. Change becomes more human when it becomes a social experience rather than a top-down initiative.

Behavioral economics demonstrates social proof ’s power to drive change—indeed, environmental and charitable initiatives have long used social proof for exactly that. For example, Opower encourages homeowners to decrease energy usage with peer-group-informed messaging such as, “You used 15 percent less energy than your efficient neighbors.” In the same vein, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge became a cultural phenomenon in 2014 by leveraging social proof to motivate others to share the message and donate. 37.

These same lessons can apply to change management initiatives. And with well-organized data, it gets even easier. If your change process has certain milestones, leaders can message, “Seventy percent of your team has completed this change.” And when an employee makes a significant accomplishment in the name of the new process, be sure to publicly acknowledge and celebrate the good work.

As the business environment shifts ever more rapidly, companies across sectors need to rethink established processes and shift mind-sets, and it’s more important than ever that employees get on board en masse. CEOs can ill afford to have change initiatives fail as often as they do, and many will see new thinking in behavioral economics as offering a way out, helping managers develop a change management framework that uses an evidence-based methodology and behavioral design. This approach to change may be harder—after all, it takes a lot more effort and thought than many traditional change management playbooks. But it will allow managers to more effectively communicate initiatives that get the buy-in of the entire workforce by moving people to the center of change, where they belong. DR.