Leading change – What are the 5 motivations to get from ‘here to there’
10-minute read
As promised in last month’s TREEO Newsletter, the following suggests our top 5 motivators to drive the change you want for yourself, for your people and for your community.
Just coming off her fifth call this morning, Jill, sponsor for the upcoming new PayX enterprise system, is fatigued and it’s only Monday. She’s been fielding inquiries from a cross-section of leaders and staff for the past 3 months about not only their excitement for the deployment of this new tech, that’s promising to make her company more competitive, but also anxiety of what this technology will mean to employees. She senses resistance to the change setting in, despite the buzz of how work will be transformed for the better. She’d like to put her finger on the root of the concerns and why some are showing their cautious optimism or pessimism towards the change.
As she looks back on her black book notes from her calls, she’s starting to see some common trends and patterns. Most of the concern seems to be stemming from the ‘What’s In It For Me’ (WIIFM) domain. The vendor has sited the tremendous upside to profitability, employee performance, client service improvements that other organizations have observed from their respective rollouts. Why not Jill’s organization? Are they that significantly different from their peer competitors? She asks herself what she may be doing wrong.
Her notes reveal that employees are concerned about their current job descriptions and related pay. The new system will require a newer way of getting things done. She observes that there’s uncertainty from employees about their tenure with the company once the technology is in play for a year or two. She’s surprised to find that the new way of work will restrict or limit the creativity and freedom that employees have enjoyed in getting to an end result, as the system promises to make things more consistent and predictable in getting to outcomes. Jill’s final review of her compilation of notes reveals that the relationships between employees and teams will change and its feeling like things won’t be fair and equitable in who is going to be doing the high-profile work – work that comes with increased recognition and pay.
Her fatigue is slowly turning to a feel good kind of excitement – she can see things much more clearly now and begins to adjust her approach in her change and communication plans.
She pulls down a book from her shelf that’s been begging for her attention. It’s content relate to the SCARF model authored by David Rock. The essence and simplicity of the model reveals itself in these 5 ways – each of them when invoked prompts our motivations to attract or repel our thoughts and behaviours towards or away from something, like the PayX system:
Status – the relative importance to others.
Certainty – the ability to predict future.
Autonomy – the sense of control over events.
Relatedness – the sense of safety with others.
Fairness – the perception of fair exchanges.
Jill’s plans are starting to take shape and she drafts them into this table to provide a better view of where she’ll focus her attention, how she’ll rally her Sponsor and leaders and importantly her workforce to embrace and welcome in the new system and way of work:
Jill’s just come out of her afternoon meeting with her Corporate Sponsors with a bounce in her step. She’s received an acknowledgement and support to move ahead with incorporating these motivation components into her plans and is confident it will address much of the WIIFM that’s she heard and felt from her colleagues the past few weeks.
How many of the 5 Motivations above resonate for you? What might these mean for you as either a participant or facilitator of change?
Drop your comments below, we’d love to hear your thoughts on how you see these playing out in your work.
