I stumbled upon the graphic below from David Armano's blog. From an organizational change management perspective, it's a great graphic.
Social media business and funny captions aside for a moment, it visually describes "a day in the life" of what could just as well be your company, or mine, when we ramp up with a project that's just jazzed with all kinds of optmism about how "it's gonna fundamentally change how we do things around here." That qualifies as a positively perceived change. If Darryl Conner is to be believed, it's a scenario that's bound for some kind of a let down.
Those of you from the change management or OD (Organizational Development) discipline will recognize the scenario above as validation of the change curve Darryl Conner describes in his 1992 book, Managing at the Speed of Change.
When the change is initially perceived as a good thing, it shows what can happen when the initial (uninformed) optimism of a positively perceived change plays out to reveal the whithering head of informed pessimism. Kind of a poetic way of saying, "Hey, let's do something 'social!'"... "This could change everything!" (Uninformed optimism.)
After a period during which more of the implications of the change effort start making themselves known, then informed pessimism creeps in: "Has legal seen this?"... "Legal just got back to us."... "We need to rethink our strategy." Or, "gawd, it's gonna require more of a coding effort than we thought."
Not shown Shown in the bottom graphic are points at the apex of the curve where "checking out" can occur. "Why don't we just put our ads on YouTube?"; "They don't get it, we might as well bag this whole thing."
It's the latter pieces of the change curve--those after the point where "checking out" happens at the apex--is what's missing from the Social Media curve in the top graphic.
The Rest of the Story.
I know the top graphic is a little tongue-and-cheek (that's why I love it), but it's worth extending this discussion to its logical conclusion. If some readers take it at face value, then it could give the impression that most projects are hard-wired for failure. In fact, only 50% of them are probably doomed to failure. (I know, that's not much comfort, either.)
But it is worth saying that the "checking out" stage, while a show-stopper if it can't be resolve, isn't necessarily a done deal.
Assuming the underlying issues can be successfully worked through, and the management team has the skills and capacity for managing change (the lack of which is why about half of all projects fail to meet their business objectives) then the team has a real shot at getting past it and into a point of hopeful realization. That's not to say everything is cool again. It just means that there's some cautious optimism that starts creeping back into the mix; it carries with it some realistic hope that the light seen at the end of the tunnel might actually be achievable "if we can keep focused."
As scheduled milestones are completed and the team continues to work non-dysfunctionally, then "wins" continue to pile up so that informed optimism starts manifesting. And that's a good thing.
How To Keep People From Checking Out.
So, how do we get past that hump? How do we increase our skills for managing change?
o Part of the solution is developing a capacity for anticipating how and when people will react to change. Study the phases above and anticipate the phenomenon that "informed pessimism always follows uninformed optimism." (Always.) Armed with that foresight, have a plan to discuss with the team how you'll communicate, and how you'll collaborate when those unanticipated issues come up. Help them to expect that they will experience informed pessimism.
o Help them expect, too, that they will feel like checking out at some point. Just knowing that you can productively expect to experience the "checking out" symptoms at some point during the project life-cycle is half the battle. The point here is, don't shy away from it. Don't hope it won't happen. In fact, you should want to see it. Because if you don't then in all likelihood, it just means it's gone underground. People have begun to check out privately. When that happens, it's tougher to work through it than if it were manifesting in more public ways.
By understanding the phases of the change curve and being aware of what to expect at each phase, you, as a manager, stand a much better chance of coming through the other side in the half of all projects that do succeed.
