Making Change Work: Practical Ways for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change
We all know that many
quality assurance management changes—introduced with great fanfare—fail to meet the goals that their sponsors envisioned.
Changes that fail usually do not do so because of technical reasons: that is, because there was something inherently flawed about the change itself. They usually fail because of human reasons: that is, because the promoters of the change did not attend to the healthy, real, and predictable reactions of normal people to disturbances in their routine.
These sorts of failures create an incredibly high cost in time, productivity and morale. They also undercut the legitimate business objectives that the change was meant to engender, and can leave toxic residue in the company’s culture.
The cause is simple: we don’t sufficiently attend to the “human” needs of change. As quality assurance and quality control professionals, we are analytical thinkers working in an arena that demands attention to how people think and behave. We allocate 95% of our effort to the technical aspects and only react to the messy human and organizational issues when problems arise.
How we analytical people think:
What is really necessary (a synergistic approach):
With this understanding, some simple principles will greatly strengthen your change efforts.
1) Recognize how important it is to have people on board with the change. No matter how good you think the change is, the organization can make or break it.
It is often said that people don't resist change so much as they resist being changed. In a nutshell, we have to explain why the affected people should want to change. We have to convey the same understanding and enthusiasm that you and your team have. We have to cultivate readiness, not resistance.
2) Spend at least as much time on the “people” issues as you do on the “technical” issues. Being an analytical person myself, I used to think that any organizational considerations were trivial, at best. Now, I incorporate change-management efforts right from day one.
3) Before you start, assess the organizations readiness for change, with management participating. Used a structured assessment and consider criteria like management commitment, resource allocation, competing efforts, past history, and so forth.
4. Develop a business case for the change and communicate it, plus management’s commitment, relentlessly. I recommend that you start each team meeting, management presentation, user conversation and so forth with a simplified business case, to keep the core idea consistent.
5) In any audience, you will always find three types of people: early adopters (say 15% of the organization), naysayers (about 15%), and the largest segment, who don’t yet have a strong opinion about the change (say 70%).
Don’t spend too much time on the naysayers. Instead, ask the early adopters to help, and set about engaging the bulk of the people. Explain what the change will mean to them, and modify your plans where appropriate to serve these internal customers.
With a little foresight, you will avoid the heartache and frustration of a good idea ground down by inattention to the “people” issues.
About the Author: Brien Palmer is Managing Principal at InterLINK Management Consulting (www.InterLINKbusiness.com).
He is author of Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change, pub. by Quality Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ISBN 0_87389-611-1
New to Quality? This Whitepaper Might Help. 
Being placed in charge of quality at a new company, or just starting out in the quality field can be daunting. Understanding the quality parameters of what the company produces and how it is produced is now up to you, which can also be overwhelming. So, where do you start?
Download "You're In Charge of Quality...Now What?" Whitepaper