IMA's Implementing Organizational Changes at Speed Blog

Have you recently undergone a major, organizational change? Maybe it was a new technology, a new innovation or a continuous improvement initiative, or perhaps it was a shared services implementation. No matter the type of change, chances are a lot of time and money were put into the project. But, after the “go-live” date has passed, I challenge you to look around your organization. Are employees actually using the new processes? Or are they busy creating work arounds? I’m guessing more of the latter, yes? 

One of the biggest frustrations Change Agents and Project Teams confront is lack of adoption of the change by the Targets. There is no doubt that the “status quo” is a powerful force, even when a change is positive or entirely rational. Very often, the reason why the change isn’t embraced is because the appropriate reinforcements are not in place. For some reason, we expect people to behave differently, but we reinforce them for staying the same! 

Here’s a pop quiz! During an organizational change, is it better to spend more time on a Communication Plan or on your Reinforcement Strategy? Need a minute to think about it? Let’s put it a different way… 

Remember the old saying, “If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk?” Seems like good management advice for sure.  But when it comes to leading change, there’s a third action required, and contrary to popular belief… it’s even more important than walking the talk!

You may be overlooking one of your project’s most powerful weapons for getting people to change their behavior. It’s Reinforcement of desired new behaviors.  In fact, we would go as far as to say that Reinforcement is the power lever for getting sustained adoption for your change.  

Last week, our blog focused on the fact that reinforcement is the golden key to implementation success.  We explained that if you want people to change their behavior; you have to alter their reinforcements.  It’s a pretty simple concept really and one we don’t think surprised many of you.  But now we ask, how exactly do you go about doing that?  Why does one reinforcement tactic work for one person, but not another? 

There is a fundamental principle of human behavior that states, “People follow the reinforcement.” In other words, if you want people to change what they are doing, you have to alter the reinforcements. That's why Don Harrison, President and founder of IMA, tells our clients that "every time you see a behavior, there either is or was a reward for it." No behavior occurs in isolation of reinforcement. 

Most organizational change fails to deliver the intended value realization. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at a few of these statistics: