Deciding to Change: Trusting

In many organizations, a time comes when their people decide to do something new. It's a hard decision. Sometimes these organizations are forced to change; that change is difficult, too, but in a different way. The change I want to consider here is the unforced change — the change we choose. Choosing to step into the unknown creates tensions in the organization that challenge leaders, break relationships, and disrupt power bases. People within these organizations sometimes experience this disruption in very personal ways. Exploring those experiences, and the ways people cope with them, can help us understand how better to plot a course into the unknown.

Let's begin with those who aren't parties to the discussions leading to the decision to change. Their opinions aren't sought. Indeed, they're often carefully insulated from any hint of the coming change. Sometimes the change is announced to them after the information is released to the media and the general public. Sometimes it's never announced. They can feel excluded, devalued, and distrusted.

The experience is painful. When it first happens to people, usually early in their careers, it can feel like betrayal. Some have been very loyal to the organization. Some were even passionate about it. Perhaps they've relocated away from family and friends, to homes better suited to the needs of the employer. And now the employer has made a change, one that seems purely elective on the part of the employer, without consultation, and without any warning.

In careers that span 30 years or more, learning of changes in this way might happen many times. After the second or third such experience, possibly at multiple companies, some people come to expect to be treated not as fully human, but as "human resources." After several experiences of being
excluded from major organizational
decisions, some people come to
expect to be treated not as fully
human, but as "human resources."They become reluctant to identify personally with the organizations that employ them. Initiative and motivation fade. Work becomes a means of earning money, rather than an avenue for seeking fulfillment.

Can anyone be honestly surprised when these people become cynical, resentful, distrustful, or even subversive?

Some organizational leaders accept this as inevitable. They deal with the consequences by removing from the organization those people most likely to adopt "unhelpful" attitudes — usually the older employees, and those whose skills and knowledge are perceived as least compatible with the new direction adopted by the organization. These leaders mistakenly view as a cost of change the loss of experienced people who best understand how existing systems work, and why they are the way they are. Fears of the consequences of "premature leaks" to the public are almost surely exaggerated compared to the losses incurred from cynicism and subversion.

We can limit these effects by trusting more employees, and including them in deliberations about changes to come. People who feel trusted reward with support those who trust them.  Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Organizational Change:

Look Before You Leap

When we execute complex organizational change, we sometimes create disasters. It's ironic that even in companies that test their products thoroughly, we rarely test organizational changes before we "roll them out." We need systematic methods for discovering problems before we execute change efforts. One approach that works well is the simulation.

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Within a week after we've learned some new tool or technique, sometimes even less, we're back to doing things the old way. It's as if the training never even happened. Why? And what can we do to change this?

When Fear Takes Hold

Leading an organization through a rough patch, we sometimes devise solutions that are elegant, but counterintuitive or difficult to explain. Even when they would almost certainly work, a simpler fix might be more effective.

Good Change, Bad Change: II

When we distinguish good change from bad, we often get it wrong: we favor things that would harm us, and shun things that would help. When we do get it wrong, we're sometimes misled by social factors.

See also Organizational Change and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming May 29: Newtonian Blind Alleys: II

Some of our decisions don't turn out well. The nature of our errors does vary, but a common class of errors is due to applying concepts from physics originated by Isaac Newton. One of these is the concept of spectrum. Available here and by RSS on May 29.

And on June 5: I Could Be Wrong About That

Before we make joint decisions at work, we usually debate the options. We come together to share views, and then a debate ensues. Some of these debates turn out well, but too many do not. Allowing for the fact that "I could be wrong" improves outcomes. Available here and by RSS on June 5.

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