Motivated to change

I was thinking recently that most people, the author especially, are lazy.  They don't want to do anything more than they have to to get by.  No additional work, no additional effort should ever be required unless it is absolutely necessary.

To this end, we suffer in silence from things we could change but don't - for a myriad of reasons.  Perhaps we don't want to rock the boat.  Or perhaps we know that opening the Pandora's box of one change will inevitably lead to another change.  Or perhaps the pain simply isn't great enough to make us want to change.  And that's the ultimate driver isn't it?  The level when the pain becomes so great that it is impossible to ignore or avoid any longer.  For most change to be successful, people need to want to change and be encouraged and motivated to change.

Most people change their habits, their work styles, and other factors or facets of their life when either there's a pain threshold that gets crossed and they take proactive steps to change, or when some change is thrust upon them by someone in command (in my case, usually my spouse).  However, when change is thrust upon you, you may not be ready to change, and will continue in your regular mode of avoidance or pain tolerance.  In fact you may be angry that someone is trying to force you to change since you've become numb to the pain you've willingly endured for years.  Like Pavlov's dog, you're not getting fed but the bell is still ringing.

What should be obvious by now is that change thrust upon others is sometimes successfully avoided and causes resentment and anger, while willing change caused by the crossing of some pain threshold is usually much more readily accepted.  As an example:

I worked as a CRM consultant implementing Sales Force Automation.  It turned out that even though the management team of a large pharmaceutical firm provided its sales reps with nice software and great training, they didn't use the software.  Needless to say this made the VP of Sales, the champion of the software, unhappy.  He had thrust change upon the unwilling, and had not pushed the sales reps over a pain threshold.  He decided to change the compensation scheme - any deal that closed but was not registered in the CRM system at least 30 days before closing would receive only 50% of the standard commission.  This was communicated to the sales force and one unfortunate fellow failed to heed the warnings.  Word got out quickly and there's little that is more painful to a sales person than failing to receive his or her full commission.  The CRM system was well populated from there on out.  Frankly, this wasn't willing change, but the pain threshold achieved the goal of 100% participation in the CRM system.

As a manager, you can thrust change upon others, which rarely works, or you can determine the pain thresholds that will encourage people to get on board and move with you.  You don't have to be the Marquis de Sade to identify the pain, but you do have to understand what pains are important and educate your team on what pain is likely to happen.  These pains may be different for various individuals on your team, so you'll need to be a good communicator and explain what's happening and why this change alleviate or eliminate actual or potential pain.  Otherwise, you'll have a bunch of numb employees who resent you for making them create another workaround.

You may think I'm a cynic, but human nature indicates that we often will bear an enormous amount of pain and frustration to continue working and living in a familiar situation, rather than experience some change.  That's the same in our personal lives as well as our work lives.  Often we'll tell our staff that the new way will be "better" or more "efficient" than the old method.  For most people, that is simply not a strong enough reason to change.  You've got to understand the pain threshold that will encourage them to move with you, rather than simply thrusting change upon them.