Adapting to Change and Addressing Resistance
We are delighted to share our recent interview on Change Management with our associate Kevin Coyle. Kevin is a thought leader with extensive expertise in change management, digital transformation, and project management. Additionally, he is an active contributor to our LinkedIn Associate Group sharing his valuable insights and views on various topics prompting us to catch up with him and hear his thoughts. If you would like to read more of his thoughts and insights, you can find his articles on his LinkedIn page which is linked in the credits below.
In this interview, Lindsay speaks to Kevin about his thoughts on Change Management and cover topics including the impact technological advancements will have on how change projects will be delivered, the key reasons why an organisation would go through a digital change and his advice on addressing resistance to change.
LH: You are very active on our Platform, Smart LinkedIn Group, which is great. I know one of your most recent posts was about Leveraging Technology for Change, which was a really interesting read. Do you have any future change topics that you'll be sharing in the next few weeks?
KC: It's been really interesting writing these articles. I plan to explore quite a few different topics. I'm looking at things around inclusion and change management practices, diversity, and equality, along with looking at things like project management and change processes and how we can start to drive consistency and efficiency out of some of these. So… A lot to come, a lot of interesting topics and I'm getting some good feedback as well, which is always good.
LH: What would you say are the key reasons an organisation would go through a digital change?
KC: Often, organisations undergo digital change primarily for operational efficiency, improved customer experience, or to stay competitive in the market and to adapt to evolving technologies. Digital transformation often enables organisations to streamline their processes, optimise resource utilisation and remain agile in the growing landscape. I think the biggest challenge that organisations face is mobilisation and getting people organised and following the same process. Lots of organisations are going through many change processes, and I think organised change fatigue is also a real barrier to getting people moving.
LH: How do experienced change leaders start organisational change initiatives?
KC: It comes back to assessing ‘the current state’, which is often driven by strategy roadmaps or events that change the process and build a compelling vision for the future. The key thing is getting leadership buy-in. We often talk about a project sponsor and a change sponsor, but these people have to be really front and centre, very vocal, and actually lead the charge; they can't be passive. They must be active sponsors and engage key stakeholders.
When I say engage, it's not just a few emails. Engagement is going out and running focus groups and interviews capturing the voice of the organisation. It’s getting under the skin of why the change needs to happen. A well-defined strategy is a well-defined communication process that comes at both the macro level, organisationally, and the micro level for the project. I often think some of those things blur into one or get missed out. Also creating that sense of urgency, I think getting people mobilised is often a real problem because if it drags people lose interest, they forget about what's happening. Creating that sense of urgency is crucial to getting that initial pace going. Once you've got that momentum, you've then got to build on it.
LH: What should change leaders start, stop or continue doing to deliver their change initiatives?
KC: I think, for me, people often resist change that happens within organisations. I think people should stop resisting and start embracing, look for feedback, and foster a culture of open communication. I think when organisations try and do things without the involvement of employees it’s not a great recipe for success. I think flexibility and a willingness to adjust are key. The world changes, such as when Covid came along, organisations that are not adaptable enough to new strategies, ways of working and technologies are left with a lot of challenges. Embrace feedback, create open communication and be flexible and adaptable to change.
LH: How do you measure the success of a change initiative? What sort of metrics do you usually use
KC: I think it's one of the key challenges that a lot of change initiatives miss out on. There's your typical hard measurements of return on investment and efficiency savings. However, there are also things like employee engagement; if your employees engage in the process, if they're happy to be part of the process, they're more likely to use the tools you put into place, adoption rates, and achievement of desired goals. They're often the softer measures that are quite difficult to analyse. Through a number of mechanisms like satisfaction surveys, polls, temperature checks, and ideas like that you can gather feedback.
LH: How would you ensure that everyone involved is well-informed about a change?
KC: It goes back to comprehensive communication planning, that leader, that sponsor being front and centre and being very visible. I think often, certainly in large organisations, a sponsor is just a person who's nominated. What you need is all of the leadership team to be advocating for projects and they should all be aware of what is happening and they should be able to vocalise on it. It shouldn't be, please defer to X, Y, and Z. The usual communication channels, town hall meetings, newsletters, I'm very keen on a lot of face-to-face workshops, particularly to manage resistance. But also, I think sometimes when you can look people in the eye and actually talk to them about it, you get a much better buy-in than just sending emails. I see so many projects where they change processes, we'll send them a few emails and it'll be all right. Somebody once said to me, ‘hope is not a project management tool.’
LH: So what are some of the most utilised change models in change management?
KC: Typically, with change management, it can come in a number of ways. I've predominantly worked in the technology space,so technology-enabled change, but you have organisational as well. So for me, I am an advocate of ADKAR, which is the Prosci model. So awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement can work at both an individual and a team and organisational level. There are also things like Cotter's eight-step process and Lewins's change model. There are quite a lot of models. I think the thing with models is they're good, but it's being able to understand what you are seeing and hearing, and being able to translate that information into the outcome that you want to achieve and bring those people on that journey.
The models are an aid and people often rely too heavily on them, but actually, it's just a way of organising your tasks. I think the key thing goes back to that engaging with people. Bringing them on the journey, explaining what's going on, educating them, that's typically why I stick with the ADKAR model.
LH: What are the top key performance indicators or KPIs that change a leader's track?
KC: Typically, it's financial performance, but I think more recently, we're starting to see a lot of things around employee satisfaction and in things like Microsoft 365. For example, now you can look at the adoption rates of tools and processes. That helps people to understand tools like Viva insights and things like this, you can start to understand how people are interacting with the tools that you are deploying. I think financial importance is still number one. But I think employee satisfaction, if you've got good employees that are motivated, then you can often go a long way as a business.
LH: Thinking about some of the engagements that you've worked on, what are some of the biggest obstacles you've faced in helping organisations overcome resistance to change? and what advice would you give to overcome some of these issues?
KC: I think it comes back to those two things involving your key stakeholders early, having that sponsor in place and involving those key stakeholders and understanding who they are. So often, we don't go out and engage the business because it's too early or it's not quite right and actually, there's never a right time. The more you can engage with these people, the better and that leads to the other common challenge that most people face, which is resistance management. So the people, particularly in things like the public sector where you've got a lot of longevity in people's employment history we don't want to change. We like doing it this way, those kinds of arguments, or they don't see the value.
The thing I often talk about with people is that 'what's in it for me?' If people don't see ‘a what's in it for me,’ then you're not going to change. So, if somebody comes along and says, you're a bit overweight, you need to lose weight, but until you can see, 'the what's in it for me,' you're not going to do it. You're not going to pick up. You're not going to go to the gym, you're not going on the journey. People have to come to a change in their understanding that there's a desire and a benefit to doing it.
Establishing that kind of change coalition means making sure that you are empathetic to people's concerns, people's resistance. We often talk about quick wins, but there are many things you can do that can generate some of those quick wins. That goes back to an answer earlier when we were talking about momentum. Once you've got that momentum, what you can't do is give the big presentation about we are changing, and we are moving in this direction and then all go off in a cupboard and develop something for a year and then go tada, you've got to keep that momentum going. That's where that kind of engagement, the stakeholders, that coalition and managing that distance along the line kind of works.
LH: How can we involve employees in the change process to encourage ownership and buy-in from them?
KC: That comes back to me for the ADKAR model. So the ADKAR is a very simple model. It says, if people don't have awareness, then they won't create desire. If they don't have desire, they won't seek knowledge. If they don't have knowledge, they won't be able to do then what you need them to do. If they don't have reinforcement of that knowledge, they won't then make that a skill that becomes a natural thing. It goes back to involving them in the decision-making, creating that culture of collaboration, managing that resistance, and establishing those cross-functional teams. I see in organisations that we still always operate in silos. A lot of the persona workshops and change workshops, I would run, I'd want people from different parts of the business because that provides conversation. I've sat in quite a few where people have got to the end of it and gone, wow, I didn't really know you did all that and they've worked in the company for a long time. That collaboration opens up conversation, which then leads to understanding, then moves people in the right direction.
LH: What support mechanisms such as training and coaching should be provided then to help employees adapt to the change?
KC: When you talk about training, I think the days of sitting in classrooms are long gone now. Most people consume their information in bite-sized chunks. If they want to learn about stuff, they now go to YouTube or they learn off TikTok or they want a very short, sharp video. So I think it's been able to have a multidimensional program. We often look at things like self-service learning and what we then call participative learning. Running webinars, doing drop-ins where people can come as a group and learn or a webinar that coaches them through it. Creating that learning pathway for those people to work their way through a process and be able to access lots of different information.
Some people want to use a guide, some people want to read it, and some people want to watch it. We all learn in different ways. It is creating a mechanism that allows people a number of access points to that information and a number of ways to consume that information. But we often talk also about things like super users and I kind of talk about change agents, so people who are willing to give up their time to support that process. That comes back to that reinforcement and being able to build a coalition showing what good best practice is and sharing success across the business. So it helps people address that skills gap. It creates that learning culture and then ultimately it creates a smoother transition for people from that current state to the future state.
LH: How should you address resistance to change and promote a culture of openness and adaptability
KC: Very difficult. I think it's a skill that people often don't look at. It involves active listening. Often we want to jump to a solution, but we need to actively listen. We need to address those concerns promptly. If we don't and go yeah, we'll take it away and come back to you in six weeks, that's not going to help them. They're probably lying awake at night, sweating, worrying, is it going to affect my job? am I going to stay? I always try to say to people, try and put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Being able to listen and understand, but then being able to showcase what it's going to change and how it's going to change often has that positive impact on change.
It comes back to that culture of openness. If we don't have that ability to allow people to raise concerns and talk freely and there are a lot of things, we've all seen, old wives’ tales and old myths that come across with lots of organisations. But I think, it is being able to kind of listen to that, understand that and address it very quickly. Create that ongoing communication, and create an environment that values innovation and continuous improvement as well.
LH: Absolutely. At the current pace of the world and the technological advancements that are being made, particularly around AI advancements, do you think this will impact how change management projects are delivered in the next couple of years?
KC: I think it will be a good assistant for people. I believe change management still relies on engaging with people. Where AI can help them with things like data analytics, being able to create plans and assemble research it avoids the blank page syndrome. The ability to look at information and analyse it integrates research using AI to manipulate that data and get that information, whereas before, you would have to troll through a lot, and spend a lot of time. I think it can provide valuable insights into that information. It can automate some of the processes as well. So I think people are scared of it because they see it as a unknown, once people start to understand that it can help you in what you do, but it can't do what you need to do is probably the best way.
I think change managers will still stay around. I remember an old boss of mine saying, people buy from people. In change, that's often the case, if you've got good change managers and good change agents who are engaging with the business, those people then help to move the process along. So I think it will move in the right direction, but I can't see it taking over.
I think the real challenge is that people don't like change. We are creatures of habit and when you bring in something called artificial intelligence, it can often be very scary. So I often try not to talk about technology to people because it often scares them. It's just a way of doing what you do at work.
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