“What, Exactly, Do You Want Me to Do?” Factors of Change

Recognize This: Employees may buy into the need for “change,” but they won’t know how unless you tell them in a way meaningful to them individually.

Steve Roesler, author of the excellent All Things Workplace blog, recently wrote on change management. 

He told the story of the company president who laid out the perfect story for why a change in the corporate culture was necessary, getting discussion and total buy-in along the way. Everyone was on board. Then a manager asked: “I just need to know one thing: what, exactly, do you want me to do?”

That’s the crux of change management challenges, isn’t it? People may agree the proposed change is good and the right thing to do, but if they don’t know how to contribute to that making that change happen, you’re not going to get anywhere.

The same is true here. “What, exactly, do you want me to do?” Getting people to agree to the *VALUE* of a proposed change is not the difficult part. Helping them implement the many big and little steps to make that change a reality -- now that's a challenge. Clearly telling people is certainly the first step. But then positively recognizing people and reinforcing those behaviors, efforts or outcomes is critical to making the change real for every employee.

Like I said last month: Seek out behaviors you desire as foundational to your culture. Praise the people demonstrating those behaviors. Repeat. Often.

How successful have change initiatives been in your company? Did you understand exactly what you needed to do to bring about the desired change?