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Commitment is to change what prevention is to risk management. If you are going to get change, you need commitment, just like if you are going to manage risk you need prevention.
As I do training about leading change, I start the day by asking participants to share a word or phrase they think about when they think of change. Frequently the responses include these words: resistance, fear, why, and not again.
Rarely do I hear the word “commitment.” Why don’t we think about commitment when we think of change?
I believe the answer lies, in the fact that most of us haven’t really grasped the importance that people play in change. Change, or better yet transition, is all about people coming to terms with the change.
You can have a great idea, great technology, great facility or anything else, and if people don’t buy into it you basically have nothing. That’s the reason most change efforts fail to deliver what was anticipated.
Further, my experience is that most of us leading change really don’t understand it. Most of what I have learned about change, as I was coming up through the ranks, was learned on the job trying one thing and then another…muddling through. And I think most people in leadership have had the same experience.
In fact, my experience is that no more than ten percent of people in any kind of leadership position have had any training on change.
By way of comparison, consider the amount of training required by people entering many professions. For example, a new peace officer attends a 6-month academy. After graduation, he is assigned to a training officer for another 4-5 months for training on the street. Hence, he generally has at least 10 months of training before working solo.
Later in that individual’s career, if promotion comes along, he/she will be responsible for providing leadership for some number of people. Upon promotion, the person attends a 2-week supervision class that likely will not address leading change.
In fact, it is highly probable that he/she will never attend a class that deals specifically with change and/or transition. And yet, that person will be involved in leading change(s) regularly. Further, the success of the organization will depend on many others, like this person, who are ill equipped to lead change. It’s no surprise that change efforts frequently fail.
Consequently, it should come as no surprise that we often associate resistance with change, rather than commitment. A high level of resistance is what we often experience when we don’t take the time to build commitment.
Let me hasten to say that resistance is normal and, in fact, part of the process people go through to come to a place of commitment to a change. However, the intensity and length of resistance can be significantly impacted by our efforts to build commitment before change is actually implemented.
Recently, I wanted to get a new program started. In order to build commitment, I sent some people to visit three other organizations. We talked about it and I drafted a document with our ideas. A larger group discussed it and I made more changes.
I brought in some people from outside our group to talk about their experience in doing the new tasks. I brought in customers who shared wh
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