amazon highlights: How to Change the World / Jurgen Apello / 2012

When you mix different ideas from multiple sources, a new idea can emerge that both aggregates and improves on the pre-existing ideas. An organization is not a machine driven by an owner. It is a social network: 1. Dance with the System, 2. Mind the People, 3. Stimulate the Network , 4. Change the Environment

I don’t believe that people don’t like change. I am willing to believe that people don’t like your suggestion for change. I am quite sure they will actively resist your change because they are not convinced they should change with you.

First of all, to get people moving, they need a goal. They need something to change for. It is vital to make it clear what you want to achieve. Once you know the destination, the best way to get started is to find an example of things going well somewhere, and then to copy the good behaviors. To get people going, start with small steps. Don’t just throw the big picture at them, but also give them clear and achievable short-term goals. You want to carefully pick the right time and the right place to get started. Short feedback cycles are better than long ones.

A social system is complex and adaptive. As a change agent you have to keep poking it with ideas and check how it responds and changes. And you have to respond to those changes as if you’re dancing with the system, carefully guiding it in the right direction. Change will not happen when people see it as something that doesn’t benefit them personally, or something that they’re unable to implement. And since all people are different, there’s no one-approach-fits-all for social change.

The ADKAR model has the following five dimensions: Awareness of the need to change, Desire to participate in and give support for the change, Knowledge of how to change (and what change looks like), Ability to implement the change on a day-to-day basis, Reinforcement to keep the change in place

Your rational messages need to be complemented with emotional triggers for change. Many times people ignore what is important and instead they focus on what is urgent . People not only change when they feel the urgency of your idea. They also change their behaviors when it makes them feel better! When you want people to change it is not enough to simply send them an email with a rational explanation for the change. You have to make them feel the change is both urgent and desirable.

The way a trainer teaches something is as important as the message itself. Since lectures seldom inspire people, it is better to communicate an idea using stories, exercises, games, and discussions. People often show some good efforts to change, but then they fall back into old patterns and familiar habits. Provide evidence that they’re making progress and that this is worth their ongoing commitment.

Most change initiatives start with a small group of supporters, a small group of skeptics, and a big group of people who don’t care. Try focusing first on the ones who are most eager and willing to adopt the change, and grow your change program from there. But a word of warning is important here. Don’t sell your idea to innovators who are not respected by the rest of the people you want to convince. If you sell to the wrong ones, the rest will resist even harder. By listening to criticism you can often find ways to improve.

If you want to steer self-organization by changing the environment, you can consider the following suggestions, based on the Four I’s model proposed by Mark van Vugt [Van Vugt 2009], which I have extended to the Five I’s model

• Information: Use information radiators to make people aware of the consequences of their current behavior.
• Identity: Appeal to a higher identity (such as a corporate culture) so that people feel a need to work together.
• Incentives: Give small rewards for good behavior, in the form of compliments or tokens of appreciation.
• Infrastructure: The tools and infrastructure you set up around people will significantly influence and guide their behaviors.
• Institutions: Introduce communities of practice, or other informal institutions, that can set standards for good conduct.

In order to change people’s behavior, instead of changing the people themselves (which is hard to do without an expensive operating table), you might want to consider changing the environment, and let the people (re‑)organize themselves.

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.