It’s the Problem & the Solution
Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.
In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he's also writen monthly columns for CIO Magazine and Computerworld Canada.
His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
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Yogi Berra, the full time sage and baseball player, pointed out that “you can learn a lot by just watching.” I’m certain that at some other time and place he also suggested “we can hear a lot by just listening.”
Usually, if we’re willing to pay close attention, we’ll find the solution to a problem staring us in the face. Consider the problem facing an engineer who wants to create a stone bridge over a river. If the river is small enough, you just take a “long” rock and place it over the water. If the river is a little bit wider, you can lean two “long” rocks against each other to form a “/\”, pile rubble on either side of the “/\” and the result is a fairly sturdy “bridge.”
The trouble begins when the river is wider than two long rocks. You can start a tower of rocks at either side and lean them towards each other, but gravity will inevitably pull those towers down. That is, until we stop thinking of gravity as the problem, and seeing it literally as the solution. The force of gravity is “down,” but it’s relatively easy to get it to work in other directions.
To get gravity to push “sideways”’ instead of “down,” all we need do is make it impossible to move straight down. An arch of stone with a crucial
triangularly shaped “keystone” accomplishes this; in attempting to push the keystone “down,” gravity must move the other stones sideways. Our next task is to make sure the stones can’t “bulge” out to the side – and we do that by blocking the sides with the rubble
you used before. If you can build that structure, it would stand up because of gravity. Mission accomplished.
Well, sort of. First we have to put a temporary wooden scaffold in place on which to build the gravity defying (or is it gravity exploiting?) structure. Once we complete the stone structure we can remove the wooden scaffold and the stones cannot fall down.
While this is a very concrete (no pun intended) “physics” example, it does serve to highlight that the obvious problem is often the obvious solution.
Now on to applying this to Managing Change. Think back to the last difficult change in your organization and write down several of the questions raised when the
change became apparent. These are the ones which indicated to management they had a “change resistance” problem.
It would be very unusual if the stream of questions echoing in your memory did not include “why should I change?” Count the number of times that question is voiced each week in your organization and you have a rough and ready measurement of its ability to manage change effectively.
Is there any doubt we consider “why should I change?” an indication of resistance? In many cases, that question will label the person asking it as a non-team player, a trouble maker, even as being insubordinate. How many people can honestly say they feel comfortable asking that question of management during a meeting? That reluctance to ask this particular question is a significant indicator of organizational culture.
Here’s a bold statement: an organization which has no problem with, and encourages people to ask the question, “why should I change?” has no significant problems with respect to change management. That’s not to say that some changes won’t still be difficult to assimilate, but the decision to change will be easier to make, and will be more unanimous.
The question “why should I change?” isn’t the change management problem; it’s literally the solution.
Answer the question!
Give them the reason why the change is necessary!
That’s all they’re asking for.
As someone said, “it’s neither rocket surgery, nor brain science.” There’s one thing, the only thing, that can remove a question, and that is an answer. Anything else, any sidestepping, any dancing around the topic, any “no commenting” only serves to make the question more prominent in the mind of the questioner. They know we haven’t answered the question. They’re not fools. All of which makes the answer even more important. Not answering the question openly, means we must have something to hide.
The question “why should I change?” is nothing more than a symptom of a lack of communication and understanding. It signifies the natural human need to ask “why?” Answer it, and the problem goes away; let it hang in the air and it grows in importance.
It’s almost too simple a solution to the whole “Change Management” problem. How could this huge problem be solved by merely answering one question?
A better question might be, if it is so very important to implement a specific change, why do we refuse to answer “why should I change?”
© 2005,
Peter de Jager – Peter is passionate about change, how it affects both
individuals and organizations and allows them to grow and prosper. To contact him, and
host internal seminars on Change Management visit www.technobility.com
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