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Summary.
When an organizational change is first proposed, most people immediately want to know three things: what does this change mean to me, why is it happening, and what will it look like when the change has been made? People only begin to be open to accepting, embracing, and making this change when their mindset starts to shift from “this change is going to be difficult, costly, and weird” to “this change could be easy, rewarding, and normal.” The author offers four straightforward approaches for leaders to support their people through this necessary mindset shift, resulting in a critical mass of people who will understand, accept, and adopt the change reasonably quickly.Every leader has had the experience of unveiling an organizational change — a new system or process, a corporate restructure, a shift in the business model — and getting a less-than positive response from their team. Sometimes the reaction is subtle: lowered eyes, tightened lips, silence. With a more confident or vocal team, you might get questions about whether the change is necessary, complaints about “yet another thing to do,” and lots of reasons why this just isn’t a good time for a big shift.