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Be a Change Management Rocket Scientist

Guest post by: Ben Nash

Article Overview: When you get down to it, change management is a pretty “soft science” – a combination of ideas from organizational psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology (and some other things ending in “ology” that I can’t remember). This, however, does not impress our friends in the “hard sciences” (engineers, chemists, physicists and other things not ending in “ology”). These guys become suspicious if you talk to them about things you can’t put in a test tube. “Show me the empirical evidence” they say when you talk to them about the soft-side of organizational change. “I want to see the data” or “give me the formula”. This is when a change manager turns into a rocket scientist and pulls out their secret scientific weapon the CHANGE EQUATION!

Be a Change Management Rocket Scientist

When you get down to it, change management is a pretty “soft science” – a combination of ideas from organizational psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology (and some other things ending in “ology” that I can’t remember). This, however, does not impress our friends in the “hard sciences” (engineers, chemists, physicists and other things not ending in “ology”). These guys become suspicious if you talk to them about things you can’t put in a test tube. “Show me the empirical evidence” they say when you talk to them about the soft-side of organizational change. “I want to see the data” or “give me the formula”. This is when a change manager turns into a rocket scientist and pulls out their secret scientific weapon the CHANGE EQUATION!

The effect is magical! Immediately our left brain sequential thinking colleagues become calmer. “Aha!! and equation - whoopee - sounds like math!” they say.

So what is the CHANGE EQuATION all about—well here it is:

D x V x F > R

Where:

• D = Level of dissatisfaction with the present situation
• V = A clear vision of what is possible in the future
• F = Known and achievable first steps towards achieving this vision
• R = Resistance to change

Impressed? - I know I am! So how does it work? Simply put, if D, V, or F are at, or near zero then R will dominate. The job of the change manager in their role as “Rocket Scientist” is to work out the metrics to be used for D,V,F, and R, to come up with the final calculations, and build this into their Change Plan. It may take a little effort – but the reward is honorary status as Rocket Scientist and temporary membership of the “Hard Sciences Club”

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Article Tags: change management, cultural anthropology, empirical evidence, organizational change, organizational psychology, physicists, sociology, soft science



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Re: Spellcheck? - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":2f894q6j]When discussing the majority of people I would definitely say that most people hit the "Change" or "Ignore" button without thinking too much about the correct spelling of a word. All bosses are concerned about is getting the report to the Directors meeting on time.[/quote:2f894q6j] That probably depends on what the "majority" are trying to accomplish. I have word set to alert me about misspellings and grammatical problems, so I fix most as I go. But I also add names etc to the dictionary because I get tired of seeing the red and green squiggles when I know the info is right. If you're only going to click "Change" or "Ignore" then why bother to take the time to use spell check????? Business people that I work for want the info compiled in a timely manner and they want it right - which is fine because that's the way I strive to do any project. Sending out a memo, letter, report etc with obvious spelling and grammatical mistakes makes the person and the company look bad as far as I'm concerned. Shri


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