Six times last week someone challenged me with the question, “Why do you keep changing?” In each case it was said with a sense of humor laced with anxiety. The confrontations occurred following advanced “peek” discussions of beta versions of upgrades to our Innovation Engineering software tools and Brain Brew Whiskey(e)y bourbons. The tools offer a tenfold increase in innovation speed; the whiskey’s offer 2-to-1 consumer preference. Despite these benefits, passive aggressive resistance remains to both.
In today’s fast-paced world, “grow or die” is a simple yet true slogan. In theory everyone agrees. However, in practice, as one company leader told me recently, “I’m in favor of change for everyone other than me!” She smiled when she said it — acknowledging the ridiculousness of her feelings.
Thinking on it, I’ve identified three factors as to the root cause of resistance.
1. Lack of alignment on the bigger picture mission. The biggest source of resistance may well be a lack of alignment on the greater purpose for the change. Most adults have a very narrow field of view. They’re focused on their work, team or department. To make change happen, we need to help folks understand the bigger picture — the mission that is greater then their personal work. In our world, they need to understand the Blue Card Narrative, or the what and the why that this improvement is important.
2. Bad implementation systems and tools. When those being presented with an improvement don’t have the systems or tools to implement it successfully, they resist. It’s often said that the source of the 95 percent failure rate with innovations is faulty execution. Our research is showing that 94 percent of the time the root cause of faulty execution is faulty work systems and tools. When sales forecasting systems are guesses, not science, or when feedback centers on internal opinions that it takes too long to get customer data, or when innovation teams are isolated from the wisdom of the corporate system, you will have flawed implementation. Conversely, when you have fast systems — five-year diffusion of innovation, monte-carlo forecasts, rapid research in days/minutes, a culture of collaboration — you will have success.
3. The benefit/risk ROI is negative. When an improvement is suggested, a mental calculation is made on the benefit of the improvement divided by the risk of failure. Importantly, the weighting is not equal. Research finds that “prevention of a negative” (risk) is 5 times more motivating than the promise of a positive. What this means is that supposedly simple changes with lost cost and impact have very little chance of gaining support. To make change happen, it needs to be meaningful enough/big enough/valuable enough to overcome the natural resistance that comes with any change.
This week, as I continue my presentations on our innovation tool and whisk(e)y improvements, I plan to focus on doing three things better than I did last week:
1) Start with PURPOSE to gain alignment at the start;
2) Identify how we can use the SYSTEMS/TOOLS to improve implementation of the SYSTEMS/TOOLS; and
3) Quantify the BENEFIT/RISK ROI — in particular, detail how we are doing greater beta testing than normal and consumer testing of the whiskies.
To me, life is meant to be lived fully. And living fully means never-ending continuous improvement in my self, my personal world and my professional world. I do this because, frankly, it’s more fun, and because the other alternative to growth is death and I’m not a fan of death.
A version of this post originally appeared here.