Seeing is BelievingThe complex organizations required today to be competitive in practically every business area, make difficult to manage the changes needed to keep the pace in a competitive market place. Thus, managers must have a clear vision about how these changes are going to be efficiently implemented, giving a major importance to the way to communicate the vision to the ultimate stakeholders to be affected by the change. Kotter & Cohen (2002), say that ‘people change what they do less because they are given analysis that shift their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings’. In a more simplistic way, we could say that seeing is believing. Let’s have a deeper thought on this opinion and let’s see its strengths and weaknesses.
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Change basics |
Business organizations require frequent change to adapt to an always evolving environment, and the lack of a clear mind about this usually leads to obsolescence and market loss. Managers are in charge of coordinating the efforts of a given number of employees, which are not just robots to fulfil strict orders, but humans which must perform an interpretation of the manager’s visions and may even have an opinion (either positive, negative, neutral, with different levels each) on the adequacy of the visions to solve the existing problems. Since the manager alone is not able to perform all the required activities, the only way to achieve a successful organisational change is to have the people taking charge of the change, by the participation, involvement and ownership in the adequate level and direction. This means that before the actual intended change in the organization happens, a change in the mind-sets of the change-builders must happen, and the manager must focus in winning these people for the project (by influencing, persuading, negotiating with them) rather than in the final goal. People will only be won for the project if effective communication happens from the steering minds to the operating minds.
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Errors |
Rather than being very clear these facts and requirements, management tend to make errors when trying to win people. Nilakant & Ramnarayan (2006) recognize three common ones as follows: 1) Assuming that great arguments would win heart and minds (much logic/rationality should not be expected from everyone). 2) Assuming that persistence without compromising would sell the idea (an authoritarian image may be given, while offering a clear target for opponents). 3) Assuming that persuading is a one-time effort (change may be a long difficult journey, and it is required to keep the momentum of the change campaign).
A nice example that the authors give of a failing strategy to provoke a change is the one of an adult psychologist to whom is left a two year old and very clever boy by his mother, when going shopping, and with the request to have the boy changed in his mind of not having his lunch. The adult starts trying the move by explanations and then by persuasions, with no success: the child always finds a hole to escape from eating. In the end, comes the direct question of ‘what do you want to eat’, to find a reply of ‘I want to eat a worm’. The determined adult agrees to find a worm and even to cook it, to meet the objective, and the child keeps sliding away. In the end, the worm is negotiated to be cut in two halves, the adult eats one half just to find that the child starts crying because the adult had eaten THE CHILD’S half. Going back to Kotter & Cohen’s statement, the adult tried to shift the child’s thinking from an analytical standpoint, while perhaps it would have been wiser to hit the child’s feelings. |
Reasoning behind the change |
In the food manufacture sector, change is a constant. From nutrition strategies to processes for manufacturing, not being open to change means quick obsolescence and not being an option for the consumers. Like many other technology-based areas, where the safety of the products can be seriously compromised and may affect the consumers in case of defects, feelings are not good companions when driving change. Robust analyses are needed before deciding changes with multiple possible effects. For instance, changing to a more environmentally-friendly type of food packaging will have an impact not only on the perception of the company by the sensible consumer, but also on the production lines, the shelf life of the products, or the ability of low-income buyers to achieve a must-have item (e.g., baby food). Driving a company to such a technology-based change will be backed by decision-makers in this area only after adequate analytical reasoning. The statement by Kotter & Cohen could perhaps be relieved from application under these circumstances when established rules make mandatory the change based on analytical background.
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Conclusion |
The resistance to change is found almost everywhere for one or another reason. Perhaps a previously failed initiative, the lack of credibility on the change agent, the resistance to shift from old learnings, or a threatening future, are behind a negative attitude. Influencing the feelings in such cases (involving the people after clearly targeting them, shaping well the message and timing the campaign …) can be as effective as, or even more, than having the senior management pushing from the top. In this sense, seeing is believing, and genuinely believing in change means the acceptance of new ideas and committing with them.
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References |
Kotter, John P., and Dan S. Cohen. The Heart of Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
https://hbr.org/product/the-heart-of-change-real-life-stories-of-how-peopl/an/13500-HBK-ENG Nilakant, V., Ramnarayan, S. (2006). Change Management. Altering Mindsets in a Global Context. Published by Response Books, Sage Publications. https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/mst/change-management/book229357 |