This post is part of a 10-Week Series sharing the powerful reasons to Let Go of Change Management. If you missed the first post - go there first. We welcome your comments, discussions and insights as we explore the topic of transforming culture and business.
Why Let Go of Change Management - Top 10 - #4: Death by rumor: Only after we figure it all out will we bother to let you know.
Carefully craft a tidy plan and work it out COMPLETELY before giving employees answers to their questions. Don’t share information unless it’s perfect, on pain of looking like bad leaders and staff losing confidence. Don’t reveal anything about org chart design, budget priorities, or possible risks in the process, lest you incite panic amongst the “unwashed masses.”
These are the instructions, the words of wisdom, of change management.
Meanwhile, back in reality, employees are pulling their hair out trying to guess at job security, their place in the organization, and the future of their team. It’s the death of a thousand paper cuts.
In the absence of any substantial data, the rumor mill will absolutely begin to fill in the gaps. And with each day that goes by, new and more cynical interpretations flood into the mix.
Do you ever wonder why people act like children during major change initiatives? Consider that they act this way precisely because they are treated like children: “sit down and shut up”; “speak when spoken to”; “if we wanted your ideas we would have asked for them”; “you’re not ready for the truth”; “no we’re not there yet”; “stop asking so many questions.”
Why this old school mantra of change management is so painful, so devastating, is because it leaves employees to somehow make sense of what’s happening in an environment void of information. What staff eventually “come up with” to make sense of what’s happening, in almost all cases, does not match the executive’s real reasons or motives for the change. According to Bordia (1994), 30% of all communication after a change is “leaked” is sense-making, wherein staff search for a likely “contender” for why this is all happening. And soon after a “contender” rises to the top, one employee will spread the rumor to 30 others within a week (Fritz, 1998).
When the real reasons, along with the “perfected” plan, are shared with employees much later in the process, well-worn employee interpretations collide violently with executive realities. This collision delivers a knockout blow to the change initiative from which it can’t make a comeback.
By Vik Maraj and Kevin Gangel - Co-founders of Unstoppable Conversations
Share your thoughts - we welcome all: nay, yay or hmmmm.
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Check back next time for our #5 Reason to Let GO of Change Management. Join Unstoppable Conversations and get notice of these and other paradigm-shifting insights on LinkedIn or Facebook. Keep in-the-know for your organization, team and culture transformation.
Unstoppable Conversations, founded by the team of Vik Maraj and Kevin Gangel, are a unique consulting firm which produces radical shifts in the capacity of an organization’s leaders to realize extra-ordinary results within a surprisingly short time. Their work demystifies the world of change and simplifies everything to ONE key driver. Leaders discover that their organization’s culture shapes and limits all of their well laid plans and they discover how to practically address their culture with real-time actions that produce immediately obvious benefits.
