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Change from the Inside Out

Making You, Your Team, and Your Organization Change-Capable
Erika Andersen • Berrett-Koehler © 2021 • 256 pages

Management / Change Management

Take-Aways
• Change used to happen slowly and incrementally, but the speed of change has accelerated and its
magnitude has grown.
• People prefer stability and constancy because for most of history change loomed as a risky threat.
• To change, know the modification you desire, why it should happen and what the status quo will be
afterward.
• To shift your mind-set, alter your interior monologue or self-talk.
• Leaders motivate and drive successful transitions.
• Complex, inadequate or disjointed organizational systems and structures stymie change.
• Leaders can transform an “antichange company culture.”
• Follow a five-step change model to achieve a snowballing trajectory of change across different scenarios.
• Prioritize innovations and implement the ones that are most feasible, significant and timely.
• Identify and work with team members who will be the most affected by the new normal.

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 Recommendation
For most of human history, change was a threat associated with war, epidemics, drought, and other
catastrophes. Today, ongoing change is a constant, not a calamity, and the ability to bring about change is a
critical managerial skill. Best-selling author Erika Andersen offers insight into the phenomenon of change,
why people resist change and how leaders can overcome that resistance to implement desirable change.
Andersen offers a thoughtful, well-articulated prescription for change, including a five-step model any
organization can follow to effect and sustain meaningful change.

Summary

“Change” used to happen slowly and incrementally, but the speed of “change” has
accelerated and its magnitude has grown.

Color television took almost a decade to replace black and white; people had time to become accustomed
to it. In the 1960s, the pace of innovation accelerated. Computers had been the size of large rooms, then
suitcase-sized versions appeared. Personal computers debuted in the 1970s. They achieved rapid market
penetration, with ownership growing from 10% of US households in the Reagan and Bush administrations to
almost one-third of households in the Clinton era.

Now, technology changes in significant ways every few months. Shifts have gotten faster in other industries
and cultures as well.

“At work, for instance, just when we’ve figured out what’s ‘normal’ – how things work,
who is important, what the company does and why – it all shifts out from under us.”

For example, less than two decades ago, American cable television was monopolistic, with a single provider
per regional market. Satellite television provided an alternative. Then came streaming services. These
changes affected every employee of cable companies. Innovation affects everyone, in many facets of life.

People prefer stability and constancy because for most of history change loomed as
a risky threat.

“Homeostasis” describes how the human body maintains “stability,” keeping your temperature constant
by perspiring when you’re hot, spurring hunger when you need nutrition or triggering thirst when you are
near dehydration. A homeostasis also operates at the group level when people become comfortable with the
status quo.

Too much comfort with tradition – the status quo – can impede people from accepting change, even when
reason demands it. For example, from the 1600s on, scientists recognized the role microorganisms could
play in causing illness. In the mid-1800s, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis tested the effects of doctors washing their
hands before they treated women in labor. He discovered that maternal deaths plummeted, but physicians
took half a century to change their habits and wash their hands routinely.

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 “A given doctor will wash his or her hands consistently when he or she personally
believes it is a key contributor to patient health.”

People’s preference for homeostasis – stability – isn’t helpful. Survival depends on embracing change.
But before people can behave differently, they must think differently. Change starts inside, then moves
outward. For example, a recent study found that a century and a half after Semmelweis, fewer than half of
doctors practicing in hospitals routinely wash their hands between patients. Apparently, many haven’t yet
made the mental adjustment.

To change, know the modification you desire, why it should happen and what the
status quo will be afterward.

When people ask whether things will change, say clearly and concisely, “We need to…” You may find even
simple change difficult to bring about, as the handwashing example indicates. Delineate why an innovation
is necessary using terms that are relevant and compelling to the people you’re addressing. Talking about
corporate growth and profitability, for example, may be irrelevant to people whose personal paychecks are
not going to grow.

“The main question people have about a newly proposed change is ‘What will be different
for me after the change (or changes)?”

Fearmongering is counterproductive. People who say the company will founder without change are
inadvertently encouraging workers to look for another job. Sell the benefits of change without overselling
them or painting a naively positive picture of the future. Tell people what the future will be after the change.
Show the benefits. When you clarify the nature and necessity of a change and its future benefits, people are
more likely to stop resisting and change their behavior. Instead of thinking of the proposed change as hard,
taxing and strange, they will see it as simple, ordinary and beneficial.

To shift your mind-set, alter your interior monologue or self-talk.

Identify your interior monologue, which runs like a constant commentary as background noise in your head.
Transcribe this commentary to put it outside your brain where you can look at it and assess its accuracy.
Examine the messages you reinforce for yourself. Highlight the gaps between your self-talk and your
actual goals and true self.

“Experience really is the best teacher.”

Rewrite the script to be more balanced, optimistic and factual. Mindfully substitute your new script, again
and again, for any thoughts that undermine you. This practice will bring you to a new, more positive mind-
set.

Leaders motivate and drive successful transitions.

Leaders must have the vision to communicate what lies ahead and to help others comprehend it.

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 To bring about change as a leader, articulate the problem clearly, starting with asking questions. Express the
resolution of the problem as a beneficial change. Compare the current status quo to what should happen.
Describe the new status quo the change will foment and provide a future date when the company will have
completed the change.

“In every key shift in human history a person or a small group of people have led the
way.”

Paint a picture of the team after it achieves the transition and depict that achievement. Commit this scenario
to paper. Don’t use the future tense – use the present or past tense to define the situation.

Unless leaders lead by example, people will resist change.

Complex, inadequate and disjointed organizational systems and structures can

stymie change.

Legacy processes may be incongruent with your organization’s present or future requirements. Leaders may
imagine that what once worked is still working.

For example, one company continued to handle HR matters manually, because the CEO didn’t want to
invest in the technology needed to digitize the processes. But manual processing was time-consuming and
didn’t allow the company to capture data that might benefit HR’s core functions.

Organizational structures can be so complicated that a person may not even know his or her own reporting
lines. At one company, for example, an employee had to report to four people. It wasn’t clear whether
she even had a specific boss. When people don’t have clear accountability to a manager, they may receive
contradictory directions and grow frustrated.

“In cultures where the expected and accepted reaction to change is cynicism and
negativity, making meaningful change becomes much more difficult.”

Most executives agree that culture matters, but they may not understand what culture is, because they deal
with a spectrum of definitions. For the record, “company culture” is “patterns of accepted behavior within an
organization, and the beliefs and values that underlie and reinforce them.” Some cultures block change and
some support it.

Leaders can transform an “antichange company culture.”

Before you can change your culture, you need to identify and understand your organization’s core values and
note the ones that are most conducive to implementing modifications. Define the behaviors that exemplify
the changes you want to see.

Ample research links values with behavior. Where do you direct your focus day by day? What metrics
and incentives are in place, and how do you use them? If danger threatens or shortages loom, how do you
respond? Whom do you mentor? What image do you project? How do you show favor or rejection toward
other members of the company?

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 “Often the best approach is to propose a new, explicit, more change-supportive value that
incorporates the intention of the old value… ‘strength’ instead of ‘stability’.”

Begin the process of organizational change by finding people who think as you do. Identify changes you can
make in a short time. Focus on those improvements. For instance, the people at a company that was the
best in its industry did not welcome doing things in a new way. The company’s leaders realized they had to
change its core processes, which utilized an incentive system that rewarded compliance but did not elicit
innovation or collaboration.

Follow a five-step change model to achieve a snowballing trajectory of

change across different scenarios.

First, be clear about the need for change and the change needed. Define the change and its rationale,
pros and cons. Next, picture the status quo after the change: How will the future look and feel? This step
also involves establishing metrics for success. Third, implement the change. This includes assembling
the right staff to lead the change and communicating the change to stakeholders. Keep in touch with the
implementers and people affected to make sure they are moving in the right direction.

“Creating a cadence of monitoring and reporting progress supports making your folks
and your organization fundamentally change-capable.”

Then, “lead the transition.” Find the people the change will most affect, delineate the phases of the change,
and list what those phases will call for from them in terms of new behavior, relationships and practices.
Finally, sustain the change.

Backsliding is a risk, especially if the people leading the change leave the organization. To avoid this, help
the change landscape become the new status quo. Different people move through “the arc of change” at
different rates. Leaders who have given months of attention to a change may expect subordinates to catch on
immediately. However, each team member has to begin at the starting line. Failure to recognize this results
in leaders wondering why the team doesn’t seem to “get it.”

Prioritize innovations and implement the ones that are most feasible, significant and
timely.

For change to happen, leaders must be on board. To bring them on board, draft a “challenge question.” Ask
what is failing and what it would take for it to work better. Ask whether answering the second question
would define “successful change.” Revise until it is clear what actions would lead to achieving your
goal. Because change is difficult, make as few changes as possible. Decide which change to push by
considering each modification according to its “feasibility, impact and timeliness” (FIT).

“An elevator pitch is particularly important when you’re trying to help people get their
heads around a change (or changes).”

Analyze the risks and benefits of the change, short and long-term. Use a matrix with three columns: risks
of making this change; risks of not making the change; and benefits of the change, each with an analysis for

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 the long and short term. “Work breakdown structure” (WBS) identifies discrete phases, “deliverables” and
tasks along the way toward implementing the innovation. The WBS process should ideally be a collaborative
effort by the change team. Assign an “owner” for each deliverable. Ask each owner to identify the tasks
involved and to assign them to “task owners.”

Identify and work with team members who will be the most affected by the new
normal.

Leaders must identify the systems and processes involved in the change. To complete the transition, people
need to release their attachments to what will no longer exist or work after the change. Leaders can help
people through the transition by making sure that they understand the need for change, emphasizing
priorities and offering participants a measure of control. This prevents them from feeling subjected to
change and helps them take ownership of it. Support them by listening, dealing with any obstacles and
providing the resources they need to implement the change.

“The more you involve stakeholders and employees in building the plans upfront, the
fewer of these organizational stumbling blocks you’ll encounter during execution.”

People may believe, too often rightly, that higher-ups will stop paying attention after the change and won’t
monitor its consequences or consider further tweaks. Measuring success matters, as does letting people
know you are measuring it. Include employees in gathering data and making measurements, so they have a
sense of follow-up and control. Address their feedback.

If results fall short of success, don’t ignore the bad news. Falling short of success does not mean failure. If
your interior monologue says it does, try the exercise on self-talk again. Start the five-step process over to
deal with any shortfalls.

About the Author

Erika Andersen, the founding partner of Proteus, also wrote Being Strategic; Growing Great
Employees; and Leading So People Will Follow.

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