Chaotic.
That was how the director described the changes in his organization.
Just as he started to gain traction and feel like he was making progress, the organization appeared to switch direction or introduce a new change initiative that seemed to undo the progress he had made.
Employees could never get anything done. There was no stability.
If you’re thinking, Wait a minute. We can’t stand still. We must constantly move, or we’ll stagnate.
Consider this: stability is essential for innovation. A lack of stability can prevent innovation, growth and the change you need to make in your organization.
This director’s experience is not unique. I hear similar stories from many leaders and employees. This lack of stability stifles innovation, creates employees who fear change, and makes your organization less responsive and harder to change.
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Stability Is Essential for Change
Without stability, our safety is threatened, and instead of moving forward, we protect the current state.
Yet many leaders equate stability with staying still, stagnating or not changing. It’s just the opposite.
Change and stability are two parts of an integrated whole. You can’t have one without the other.
Only through change can we find stability. This is one of the things I teach employees through our Stress Management for Change program. At the same time, I help leaders understand that we only move forward with something when we feel secure, safe, and stable.
Abraham Maslow recognized this over 50 years ago when he stated:
“In the choice between safety and growth, safety always wins. Only when we feel safe can we grow. We grow forward when our delights in growth are stronger than our concerns about safety.”
Creating a safe, stable environment allows you to innovate, create and sustain the changes your organization needs to stay competitive, grow and respond to your dynamic environment.
Unfortunately, leaders’ actions are often inconsistent with stability, thereby inhibiting innovation and making change more difficult.
Here are three things I see consistently in my practice.
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Launching Too Many Change Initiatives at Too Fast a Pace
This is usually the result of a failure to account for both dimensions of change: the Event and the Whitespace.
Leaders believe the change process is complete when the event or its implementation is complete. As a result, believing the change is complete, they launch another change.
However, Whitespace is critical because it’s where integration occurs. It’s in this space that the new activities and behaviours needed to achieve the outcome get embedded.
If that space isn’t accounted for, those new activities and behaviours won’t be embedded and sustained in your operation.
It’s when those new activities become routine that you get a return on your investment. If you launch too many changes too quickly, you will have difficulty translating implementation experiences into the collective learning needed to maintain performance.
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Misinterpreting Discomfort as Resistance to Change
The second action is coupled with the belief that people resist change; that is, working with a resistant mindset.
There is a period in every change that I call the “guts of the change.” It’s the period when we are engaging, or attempting to engage, in new activities. We are unlearning our old patterns and learning new ways, developing new habits, and it’s always uncomfortable.
It’s easy, especially if you are working with a resistant mindset, to misinterpret the conflicts, discomfort, complaints and your team’s desire to return to their comfort zone as resistance. The new activities may be challenging their sense of competency, capability, autonomy or the value of the change itself.
When leaders label these actions as resistance, I usually see them take one of two actions. Leaders ignore or dismiss the complaints as resistance and push through harder. Or the leader halts the change process to restore balance.
Both actions have the opposite effect.
Plan for the Discomfort
The solution to creating the stability needed to enable innovation and change is to plan for the discomfort.
That’s what leaders working with the Readiness Mindset® do. They recognize this period of the change process.
Before launching, they ask:
- What is the level of discomfort people will experience?
- What can we do to minimize discomfort and support the person experiencing it?
Then, throughout the change process, they actively listen, support and enable people to navigate through it.
One Vice President I worked with did this beautifully.
It was a large transformation, and people were asked to do things in completely different ways. He actively listened to their concerns and took action to address them, consistent with the outcome story.
Then we created additional support to help them navigate their discomfort, including slowing down the pace.
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Failing to Define a Clear Outcome Story
Another action that creates instability and inhibits innovation is the failure to define a clear, concrete and concise outcome story. Then measure progress, both qualitatively and quantitatively, toward living it.
To enable innovation and change, your outcome story is more important and powerful than goals. That’s because it describes your destination. It describes what your organization will look and feel like when the change is fully adopted.
Without an outcome story, it’s easy to get off course without realizing it.
One reason is that you may respond in a way that seems intuitive. However, the action you take actually undermines your outcome.
For example, in an effort to reduce conflict, respond to complaints about a specific change or because of your belief that things aren’t working, you try to put things back to the way they were.
Or you interject and make a change within the change that sets a new direction and may appear to be in conflict with your outcome story.
Remember that Vice President?
It would have been easy for him not to require some staff to adopt the new activities or behaviours. However, he knew that all staff needed to adopt the new activities and use the system as intended to achieve their outcome.
By slowing down, adding support and staying consistent with the outcome story, he created stability and safety for those employees to move forward.
That’s why having a clear, concise, and concrete outcome story and then defining the qualitative and quantitative indicators of progress is so important.
Instead of asking, Is this working? or, worse, stating, “It’s not working,” ask:
- What progress are we making?
- Where are we in the change process?
- What is needed to increase readiness and move toward the intended outcome?
One More Strategy to Create Stability in Your Organization
Identify what’s not changing within your organization.
In the midst of change, it’s helpful to remind people of what remains stable and to encourage them to find their core. That’s another strategy we teach employees in our Stress Management for Change Course.
Change and stability are not opposing forces. Creating stability and safety enables people to move forward, helping your organization achieve higher levels of change-readiness and innovation.
If you would like help creating greater stability and achieving higher levels of change-readiness and innovation without resistance, reach out and let’s have a conversation.
