The People You’ll Meet When You’re Facilitating Organizational Change

"Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change.” - Unknown

I’m part of the group that led Phase2’s recent effort to redesign our approach to meetings. I remember the days before we rolled out the change, how we all thought “what an amazing gift we’re giving to our coworkers. Everyone’s going to love this!” Just kidding. We knew that every change engenders a range of responses, from full-throated agreement to heavy resistance — but we didn’t know what types of responses we’d encounter. And we didn’t know that we’d need to plan for each one — to make sure that we brought everyone along with us as we attempted to change our meeting culture. 

We've identified some of the common archetypes that you might meet when you’re trying to make a big change, and described how we worked with each one to help make this change successful — and inclusive.

The Resister

For them, the cost of change outweighs the perceived benefits. They may agree that there is a problem, but they’re not ready or willing to change in order to solve it. 

How to work with them: Identify some of the loudest voices, sit down with them, and really listen to their concerns. Tell them how you plan to make the change minimally disruptive, and ask for their ideas. Maybe even give them a job to do. If necessary, emphasize the cost of not changing to make your case. You’re not going to turn every resister into an ally, but you’ll often learn something from them about the challenge you think you’re solving, and how to make the solution work for everyone,

The Evangelist

They are on board and raring to go — sometimes even ready to try to do everything at once. 

How to work with them: Remind them that you have a plan, and things are happening in the order they are for a reason. Then, give them something to do! This will not only move your project forward, it will make them feel involved and useful. Even just giving them an outlet to share their success stories can be a great way to channel their enthusiasm and start building momentum. 

The Unaffected

They might acknowledge the problem, but don’t see how it applies to them. Or maybe it doesn’t impact them directly. For example, maybe your change mostly targets customer-facing staff, and they work internally. 

How to work with them: Paint a complete picture — how a problem that affects a group of people actually ripples out to impact the whole organization. For example, maybe they aren’t customer-facing but the people they need to work with are, and they can’t get time on anyone’s calendars because everyone’s always in meetings. You can also remind them that this change is happening, with or without their support. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped, but you can help them see why taking action is still valuable.

The All-or-Nothing

For this person, everyone has to agree to the change, or there is no change (they are actually a close cousin to their inverse, the “my way or the highway” person). 

How to work with them: Remind them that no one agrees with everything, and help them see the value in fostering consent over consensus. Show them how you’re planning to help support people through the change, and let them in on some trade-offs you’ve made, so they know you’re not just asking other people to compromise.

The Cynic

This person has seen change initiatives come and go, and is waiting for this one to blow over so they can go back to the way things were. 

How to work with them: Data can help here — use it to show them that there’s a problem, and share early wins of how this change is helping to address it. A rigorous rollout process can also help here; show them that you’re taking the management of the change as seriously as you are the change itself. Elements like executive support, a communications campaign, training materials, job aids, et al. can show this person that this is going beyond an all-staff email or an announcement at the all-hands.

This isn’t everyone you’ll meet when you’re facilitating organizational change; the responses will be many and may surprise you. However, learning how to identify and work with these responses, understanding where people are coming from, and most importantly, bringing an inclusive mindset, has helped us successfully initiate a major change to our meeting culture and the way we work.   

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