When Change Becomes Too Much

I’m sharing what I’ve learned about managing change and how it might explain what we are seeing and experiencing in our daily lives. Early on in my career as a leader in the tech industry I took a bunch of courses on leadership. 

One of the course in my management training was on change management. The idea was that leaders need to become skilled at leading people through change and that change doesn’t just magically happen. There is a psychology to managing change and if you ignore it you are likely to fail at implementing change. 

You can divide people into four waves when it comes to embracing change.

There are the Mavericks. These are the first to make a change, or to adopt a new technology. They represent maybe 5-10% of the population, depending on the nature of the change. Next are the early adopters. Then come the “show me” who represent the silent majority and finally the laggards who will only embrace the change kicking and screaming when there is no alternative. 

Any change will require engaging each of these audiences in that order. The early adopters won’t jump until the Mavericks have proven the feasibility, and the show me types will only jump in after the early adopters are sufficient in number to create the social proof. Finally, there are people who will resist the change kicking and screaming. 

The fact is, there tend to be people from all four of these groups at all levels in our society. Some are business owners. Some are factory floor workers. There are people from all four of these groups at all levels. Not surprisingly, leaders tend to be more represented in the Maverick and early adopter group, but that is not a hard and fast rule. 

The second thing to know about change is that change can reach a saturation point.

I went through an experiential exercise in a class where each person in the class was asked to perform an exercise. 

We were asked to change one thing about our appearance. So some people would remove their jacket or take off their glasses. Then we were asked to change one more thing about our appearance, and then one more, and one more, and one more.....

Many people reached a point where the change was emotionally too much for them to carry on changing more and more. They surmised that the changes would keep coming and they would be pushed beyond their comfort zone. Many people stopped participating long before hitting that threshold. 

This exercise taught me some powerful lessons about change management.

1. The first few changes could be made easily with very little resistance. These first few changes are almost free and will be met with almost no opposition. 
2. Changes become more expensive emotionally.
3. People will grumble before they hit the brakes. 
4. Saturation happens suddenly and the early warning signs should be paid attention to

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