The short answer is YES! Change can seem overwhelming and often times it can feel easier to keep doing what we have been doing because it's familiar. Business owners worry that too much change could negatively impact their customers or maybe they fear the employees will resist the change. Theses are all certainly valid concerns if the approach to change doesn't account for the emotional factors involved.
Teams need a reason why they should implement change. Think back to your childhood and the fun things that come to mind. Was it that special vacation with your family? Maybe it was fishing with your father or another special family member? What about the times when you spent time with your friends? What does this have to do with implementing change? When we understand the emotional factors that influence behavior, our outcomes will be much more successful.
Key Components of Managing Change
1. Plan and Engage the stakeholders. Who will be your sponsor, champion and process owner?
2. Inspire. Paint a convincing picture of how the change will be beneficial to everyone, whether they are patients, customers, vendors, and of course your employees.
3. Launch. Initiate the change. Engage your stakeholders. Just remember to keep your change specific, manageable, accountable, realistic and time bound.
4. Support. Ensure everyone has the proper resources and support to sustain the change.
How do you get people to change behavior and do the right thing? How do you incentivise doing good? Volkswagon answered these questions with The Fun Theory a number of years ago by staging a number of different public interventions including using a lottery based system to reduce speeding on public roads, increase recycling and even using a piano staircase to encourage people to take the stairs instead of the escalator.
Check out the short clip below to see how they were able to increase people taking the stairs by 66% by making change fun!