Organizations normally want to improve – incrementally, for example setting up a quality management process, or implementing a new computer system. But sometimes a more fundamental change is required, such as a change in structure and culture, or business process reengineering.
When organizations are compelled to make such fundamental changes, effective stakeholder engagement emerges as a critical success factor.
I submit that a narrow focus on resistance to change is one of the major reasons for the dismal results of many major transformation initiatives.
The breadth and complexity of problems to solve during a business transformation can only be matched by the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of people who are invested in the achievement of its ultimate objectives.
So what if we could get interested collaboration?
What if we considered resistance as a force instead of an obstacle?
Engaging stakeholders is both an art and a science.
While there are many opinions on the feasibility of obtaining interested collaboration from stakeholders, I recommend a tried-and-true approach rooted in practical application and bolstered by scientific research.
Resistance is a force
When you go sailing, the sail resists, but you tack to transform the wind into a positive force.
You harness the wind and move forward
With the wind blowing from the front, the boat turns its sails into the wind by about 45°. The sails divert the wind slightly as it blows across them, which slows the wind and exerts a sideways force on the sail. The keel cancels out the sideways force. But, if the sail is angled correctly, some of that force also drives the boat forward. The vessel continues to accelerate until that force is matched by the drag of the water.
sciencefocus
Use the force of collaboration
When doing organizational transformations (digital, culture, modernization, restructuring, scaling up)
You can also transform resistance to change into a force of collaboration
By using the reciprocity principle
Reciprocity is as old as civilization
It’s a basic human trait
You go to a pub with a friend and pay for the first drink
You expect him to pay for the next one
You bring a gift to a birthday party
You expect the same
There is an extensive body of research about reciprocity in various domains: economics, politics, diplomacy, social psychology, sociology, history, neuroscience. Reciprocity fosters a sense of trust and interdependence among people.
How to apply the reciprocity principle
Reciprocity works in organizations with two-way communication.
I learned how to apply this concept to groups, changing resistance into a force that facilitates transformations.
The approach has been validated by practical application for over thirty years in organizations of all sizes in a wide variety of sectors.
It is most effective when initiated at the start of transformations.
It’s based on listening with understanding.
Backed by science
Listening with understanding is supported by scientific research in social psychology.
Listening with understanding was first described by Carl Rogers, an American psychologist considered one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research.
Listening with understanding is an extremely potent approach in psychotherapy. Empathic understanding is so effective it can bring about significant changes in personality.
When you have been able to do it, you will find that the emotion is dissipating—the differences are reduced, and those that remain are rational and understandable.
If labor, without necessarily conceding agreement, could accurately state management’s point of view in a way that management could accept; and if management, without approving employees’ stand, can state employees’ case so that employees agree that it is accurate, real communication can be established, and some reasonable solution almost surely can be reached.
We can understand people more readily when their attitudes are accurately described to us by a neutral third party.
Such an understanding permits each group to come closer to seeing the objective truth of the situation. This leads to improved communication, to greater acceptance of each other, and to attitudes that are more positive and more problem-solving in nature.
Barriers and Gateways to Communication, Carl R. Rogers and F. J. Roethlisberger, Harvard Business Review
Listening with understanding in organizations
How can we apply listening with understanding to get people to commit to a vision and to new strategic objectives?
How do we get people to commit to a vision that disrupts their environment?
Here’s the thing.
Most of the time, employees already agree with management’s objectives.
But from a different perspective, and using different words.
If they are to commit, they have to take ownership of the idea.
So we don’t need to convince, and certainly not force people to comply.
We need to listen, and then people will listen to us.
Even if employees don’t agree with management
Or when we want to introduce something employees have not yet considered
We can first listen with understanding to create receptivity to hearing about our idea – the principle of reciprocity.
Apply listening with understanding
Listening with understanding can be applied to groups of any size.
There is of course a method.
It’s based on Carl Rogers’ approach
I call it Engagement by Reciprocity.
Benefits of Engagement by Reciprocity
Engagement by Reciprocity
- Fosters meaningful collaboration
- Stakeholders’ needs and expectations are acknowledged and addressed.
- Secures commitment
- Stakeholders co-create solutions, leveraging their diverse perspectives and expertise to innovate and adapt.
- Accelerates the pace of change and ensures its sustainability
- Stakeholders are invested in the outcomes, having played a crucial role in shaping them.
Engagement by Reciprocity can be used to mobilize many types of stakeholder groups:
- Employees, distributors, communities.
Energy and initiative are a powerful mix
Many transformation projects falter for lack of imaginative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
Yet people have a remarkable appetite for improving their competencies and their environment in order to control their destiny.
Engagement by Reciprocity shifts transformation work to another level, releasing this energy so that it can focus on outcomes, and ultimately success.
Resistance to change is like resistance to the wind.
Harness the force of the wind and move forward.