We’ve all been here before. Whether we’re the CEO moving the company in a new direction, a CRO introducing new products or sales methodologies, an IT Director launching a new SaaS solution, a PM shepherding a project through the corporate gauntlet, or even simply an analyst trying to get others to recognize and act upon what we’ve discovered, we’re all trying to create change in our organizations.
Some people are pretty good at it but, sadly, most aren’t. From the CEO on down, we all scratch our heads and wonder why our change initiatives either fail right out of the gate or fizzle out after just a few weeks or months. The change we are expecting never happens.
A few years ago – about 2,500 years ago, in fact – a Greek philosopher by the name of Heraclitus brought to light the concept of change. “Everything changes and nothing stands still,” he said. The more popularized version of this is, “The only constant is change.” So, the concept of change is nothing new, yet people still struggle with implementing and managing the change which occurs in our organizations, and pour countless millions of dollars into change activities which bear few or no results. Well, as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and, apparently, we’ve all forgotten what Sir Isaac Newton said more than 300 years ago. Let me explain…
Newton’s three Laws of Motion – stay with me all you non-physicist types, I’ll be keeping this simple, I promise, and you'll thank me for this later – are something we've all experienced, something we all take for granted, and something which, were we to apply the theories behind those Laws, would without question significantly improve change management in our companies. Now, physics can be daunting for some people, but the folks at NASA, geniuses that they are, have simplified the three laws so even kids can understand them. Here, for your consideration, are Sir Newton’s Laws, as written by NASA. First, for the more scientific among you, here are the more formal definitions:
And, since NASA is always interested in making sure everyone can understand, here are Newton’s laws from their “Kids Page”:
Use whichever set of definitions you’d like. Now, let’s put this into the context of change management. See this blue ball?
This blue ball is “change”. The more change we’re trying to create in a company, the bigger and heavier (more massive) the ball. Let’s think about this big blue ball in terms of Newton’s First Law.
To put Newton’s First Law another way, objects at rest tend to stay at rest, unless they’re pushed. And, objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless something slows them down.
A rock, for example, isn’t going to magically move itself unless you pick it up and throw it. It’s the same thing with change in a company; it doesn’t happen by itself. We proactively create change by expending resources internally (people, time, money, etc.).
An object in motion will stay in motion, unless something slows it down. Far too often, organizations fail to consider what will slow down the change they’re trying to create. The bigger (more massive) the ball, the more inertia it has, so once you get it rolling it will tend to keep going, especially if it's a big change initiative, but there will be forces at work trying to slow or stop your momentum.
Think of the surface over which the blue ball is rolling, which represents everything affected by the change, as having things that will slow the ball down. Is the surface smooth, or are there speed bumps? Did you smooth out the surface (prep the organization for the change, accounting for the various things which would create friction) before you started pushing the ball, or did you just push it and assume, incorrectly, it would keep moving (as happens when edicts are issued from on high)? Is that path of change flat, on a troublesome incline (uphill battle to get change implemented), or on a pleasant decline (the change is so obvious and so necessary that the whole organization will get behind it)?
No organization is frictionless – the reason the rock only travels so far when you throw it is because of gravity, for example, the equivalent of which is time in our corporate worlds – but prepping the surface (the organization) on which the ball (the change) will travel will cause it to slow down less (make it easier to implement).
How large a force you need to get it moving, in terms of resources (time, money, people, etc.), and to keep it moving, is Newton’s Second Law.
Many change efforts fail in managing those resources correctly. You must understand that once you get change rolling it will have its own energy (inertia), meaning it takes a whole lot of resources to get a change going and, thankfully, fewer to keep it moving. But, if there aren’t adequate resources in reserve to maintain the momentum of the change when it encounters friction (i.e. follow through), then it will, without question, stop.
You need to be careful here, however: the bigger the ball, the more inertia it has, which means it’s harder to slow down once you do get it rolling. Is there some project or program you know of into which significant amounts of money and time were poured and, even though lots of people recognize it really ought to be stopped in favor of something better, there’s so much invested in it that leaders simply refuse to change it? Moving off an old software platform perhaps, or hanging onto an outdated facility? Some other program where leadership is incorrectly letting sunk costs prevent them from moving forward with a better solution? It can take significant resources to stop change as well, if it’s necessary to do so.
The equal and opposite reaction can be confusing. It does not mean equal in kind, it means equal in energy expended.
When we push on the ball to get it rolling forwards, for example, the equal and opposite reaction isn’t that we fall backwards; the reaction, rather, is that we might have sore muscles, or create ruts in the ground where we were trying to grab footholds.
If one person tries to move a large, heavy ball by themselves, then all that reaction is absorbed by that one person. If, however, several people try to move a heavy ball, then the reaction (cost of implementing the change) is distributed to all those who put the effort in – fewer sore muscles, and there will be more ruts in the ground, but they won’t be as deep. In other words, spread the effort of implementing change out among more resources and the negative impacts will be fewer.
Now consider for a moment the impact of that big blue ball rolling along and bouncing off all the other balls (changes) that are in motion. Every time your ball collides with another one, your ball changes direction a bit – and so does the other ball your ball hit. Most of the time, when we launch change into an organization, we don’t fully consider the impact of that change on all the other parts of the organization. When we fail to account for the equal but opposite reactions, we might tend to call them unintentional consequences. However, perhaps many of those unintentional consequences can instead be called unplanned-for consequences, rather than unintentional. (Think of what happens when you start a game of pool...)
Yes, the reaction can be negative, but it can also be positive; when pushing on the ball to get it rolling, for example, the people might also be building up muscle, or learning a new skill in the process – storing that equal but opposite reactive energy to be used later.
How many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars have been spent on sales events intended to bring about change in the sales organization, only to fall back into the same routine after six months with no appreciable change in quota attainment? How many efforts to develop leaders never seem to improve top- and bottom-line performance, or fail to improve attrition rates? How many cultural development initiatives simply have zero impact?
To be sure, theirs is far more to change and change management than many people realize. The size of the change, the friction within the organization that will cause resistance to change, the slope of the path of change, and the resources used to implement the change will all determine the change’s success or failure. And, as we learned from Sir Isaac Newton, we need to consider the reactions to change, both in terms of their positive and negative effects. Creating change is not a one-and-done activity. Change management requires strategy, follow through, and a constant expenditure of resources until the change is fully implemented. Without considering all these aspects, you’ll find yourself squandering your limited resources, especially your most valuable resource – people.
Bob has been in sales and training for more than 20 years. He approaches corporate training through the lens of an MBA, understanding the dynamics of complex services, manufacturing, and sales environments, while simplifying it all so stakeholders across an organization communicate effectively. Bob leverages his military and corporate experience to build and lead teams which focus on cross-functional knowledge management, performance improvement, and paradigm alignment. Importantly, Bob understands how the field of training must adapt to the changes in marketplace, and how training must transform from a traditional information delivery function to a trusted business partner, which directly and measurably impacts behaviors to move the business needles.
Find out more about Bob Britton on LinkedIn
From north to south, east to west, Membrain has thousands of happy clients all over the world.