Webinar: Unlocking the Power of the Mind in Change Management

Luke Fisher: First up, you’ve got me. I’m Luke, the regular host of our webinars. If you’ve joined before, thank you for coming, and hopefully you know me by now. I’m the CEO and founder of Mo.

Then you’ve got Rishita. I first found you in a blog article where you were writing about change principles, really enjoyed it, and having got to know you a little bit, I can absolutely confirm that you are an expert in this space. Hopefully, you’re gonna get lots of inspiring stuff from Rishita in just a moment.

Next, I’ll tell you a little bit about Mo, and you’ll hear more about Rishita. Mo helps organizations improve employee engagement. I was lucky enough to be at a conference in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I spoke to a lot of industry analysts. The general message was that the employee engagement market is over-indexed in measurement, and we need to do more to drive change. Driving change requires action at all levels within the organization, and hopefully you’re gonna get some inspiring content to help you think about how you drive change within your own organization.

Rishita Jones: Thank you. It’s inspiring to be here with you and share a little bit more about my journey into change management, employee experience, and engagement. My background is in HR and psychology, and what I will share with you today is an accumulation of my experience over the last twenty years where I’ve worked globally in the UK, Dubai, and Africa, and now I’m based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with clients that are global.

The last two to three years have seen a lot of change in organizations, and the average employee experienced about ten planned enterprise-wide changes. We’re talking about restructuring for efficiency. We’re talking about cultural transformation for new ways of working. We’re talking about the replacement of legacy tech.

It seems more change is coming. From what I’ve seen in the last few months, maybe year or two, employees have hit a wall. There’s a shortage of employee willingness to support more change. In fact, support for change dropped to 43% in 2022, down from 74% in 2016. This gap is called the transformation deficit.

The irony is that the goals of transformation – redesigning teams, structures, automation, all of which seek to ease burnout and fatigue, and improve the employee experience – seem to be having the exact opposite effect. The approach I’ve seen is this top-down approach from leadership through the organization, deploying a high volume of change communication. That’s not working.

What I’d like to explore today is the failure rate we see in organizational change – whether you believe that 70% of transformations fail or whether you believe only 34% of initiatives are successful. Something we’re doing isn’t quite right, and what I’d like to bring to you today is my perspective on change, which brings together the head, the heart, and the hands.

That’s what I’d like to do. Bear with me. This will go quickly. I won’t be able to go into depth into any of these concepts, but I’ll be able to give you an insight or an overview of how they come together. But you may ask, how did I get to this?

I got to this because of my first big change management project with this large, global corporate organization. They were implementing, as part of a digitalization program, knowledge management and case management to improve efficiency, employee experience, and engagement. There was a lot of time lost between employees with requests and emails. What happened was that I came in to do this change management – it wasn’t my first, a few years ago.

The business case was there. The belief was there. People knew what they wanted to do. They knew this was good. Time for implementation. We rolled it out, and nobody was using the system, whether for knowledge management or case management. No one was using the new system. I was taken aback because everyone had been in such agreement. That was when I realized that even when change is recognized as good (though often it isn’t), people still struggle to change.

They struggle because we’re asking them to do something totally different from what they’re doing. Organizations don’t change. People change. That’s when I realized I needed to dive deeper into this. I started reading more about behavior, psychological behavior, and mindset, and my approach was born out of this. So let’s get started.

Organizational change isn’t organizational change. It’s people that change. And a significant portion of people’s actions are driven by habits. I’d like to take you to habit formation. How does it work? Habits are automatic routines or behaviors that are repeated over time. The more we do them, the more automatic they become.

Now, I have a question for you: What percentage of behaviors or actions that we do daily are automatic?

Okay, you got it spot on. It’s really between 75% and 90%. It’s quite scary to think that most of our day-to-day behavior patterns, thought patterns, even thinking, we’re often not aware of. We’re often not aware of the things we do or why we do them. Habits formed through a process called habit formation normally involve a cue, routine, and reward. When a behavior is consistently repeated in a specific context, followed by a rewarding experience, it becomes ingrained as a habit. A cue could be anything from an event, environmental context, time of day, or emotion. The cue creates a link between the context and the routine. The routine is the physical action, a thought, process, or emotional response.

Then we have the reward, which satisfies that need; it’s a relief. It might provide relief or pleasure. This reinforces the connection between the cue and the routine.

When we put this into the workplace context, what habits do we have in the workplace? Perhaps some of you recognize your own habits. Some of mine include: the moment I walk in through the door, the first thing I do is go to the coffee machine, grab a coffee, sit down, open my emails, and start writing my to-do list. We have daily routines and habits in the workplace: checking emails, having regular meetings. Workplace habits also include procedural habits or workflows, which companies often overlook.

How do we go through workflows? How do we create processes? How are employees interacting with one another? How are employees communicating? What are the communication patterns? How are the collaboration patterns? All of these happen as habits. This is often very unconscious.

We have an opportunity in change management to tap into all of this: daily routines, procedural habits, communication patterns, time management. Think about prioritization: does it just happen, or is it carefully thought through? All of this planning involves habits that we have in the workplace.

What I’ve seen happen in most companies is that when we try to bring change into the organization, we focus only on changing what people do, without thinking about the context, cues, and rewards. It’s treated in isolation. This approach brings together the head, the heart, and the hands – the thinking, the emotion, and the action (what am I doing differently?).

This is a brief insight into how we form habits, and if we want to change habits, we need to keep this in mind. The next slide gives some background on how you can change habits. Generally, when changing habits, you either want to create a good habit or break a bad habit.

Without going into too much detail, if you focus on these questions when implementing change or creating something different to what’s currently being done: Ask: How can I make it obvious? That’s the first law: Cue. This is about making sure the change is clear, as changes often face resistance or inertia. Make it clear and obvious. What is it that we’re asking people to do? A useful technique is creating intention or habit contracts with teams. Create that intention; make it clear what needs to change. We focus on what we put our attention on.

Second: How can you make it attractive? This is all about intrinsic motivation. We don’t often do this in change. We think about external factors, but we need to consider intrinsic motivation. What’s in it for me? Why would I want to do this? This is really about intrinsic motivation and creating that sense of reward. What works well here is having accountability partners – pairing people up.

Third is the law of response: How can I make it easy? In other words, how can I make it easier for people to adopt this change? How can I remove the friction? Friction is very important. Either you add friction to stop something or you remove it to change something.

Fourth: How can I make it satisfying? This is about celebrating, recognizing, and rewarding the effort being put into this change. Habit tracking is a great way to make this change satisfying and rewarding, keeping us focused. At a high level, I invite you to take a personal moment of reflection, perhaps later. Think about a workplace experience that was successful for you. Or if it wasn’t, why was it not successful? How did it meet each of these laws? And where did you fall short? Then you’ll know what to focus on next time. This is a great way to think internally first before looking outward.

That’s how we can change habits.

When we discuss habits, it’s essential to understand the underlying cognitive processes that influence their formation and impact our behavior. These cognitive processes are governed by what, as a mindset coach, I refer to as ‘rules of the mind’. They largely dictate how we do things, our behaviors, and our thinking processes. Let’s learn about the rules of the mind in a fun way. I invite you to join me in a short quiz.

I have about four questions; please put your answers in the chat.

Question one: According to research, the human brain can form a new habit in approximately how many days? 21 days or 66 days?

Okay, while 21 days is often cited, new research shows it actually takes about 66 days. This shows why sometimes it takes longer. We might try for three weeks, and it still hasn’t stuck. That’s because new research indicates it’s closer to 66 days. Some research even suggests it could be up to 90 days. There’s some variance, but bear in mind it takes time. Thanks for that.

Question two: People typically make decisions based on emotion twice as fast as logic. True or false?

Great, that is true. There seems to be consensus.

Question three: The brain prefers the status quo and resists change. True or false?

Yes, that’s true. Thank you.

Question four: The brain prefers conserving cognitive resources and exerting minimal effort whenever possible. True or false?

Absolutely, that’s true. You may have heard of this in terms of cognitive load. We have a maximum cognitive load as humans that we can handle. Tasks that are complex, unfamiliar, or require significant mental processing resources have a higher cognitive load. Our brain tends to push these away.

That quiz introduced some of the rules of the mind I mentioned. These rules encompass principles like association, repetition, conditioning, making things automatic in our brain (neuroplasticity).

There are many rules of the mind. For this presentation, I’ve picked the top five in my view that are most relevant to organizational change.

The first rule: In a battle between emotion and logic, emotion always wins. We saw this in the quiz. This rule highlights that high emotion can lead individuals to reject change, even if it’s rational. It’s crucial here to tell your story well. Craft a message that resonates emotionally. It has to go beyond data. It has to go beyond statistics. I find that most of the time when we communicate, we communicate the logic – why we need to do things, what it means for the bottom line. But people don’t resonate with that message. Purpose and meaning are very important here. In particular, the ‘What’s in it for me?’ (WIIFM). How are we communicating the WIIFM? Considering that the WIIFM is different for different people? My WIIFM might be different from Luke’s. How do we cater for this personalization and difference? The formula of effort versus benefit is also crucial. People do a quick mental calculation: What’s the effort required for me to make this change? And what’s the benefit or value I’ll receive in return? If the perceived effort is larger than the perceived benefit, you’ll likely see rejection.

Second rule: The mind learns by repetition. We know this. This is all about consistent reinforcement in practice. Most of our thinking and behavior patterns come from childhood, things learned from a very young age, because we’re conditioned to that context-cue-reward-routine cycle. Here, interestingly, there’s often discussion in organizations because I always say there’s no such thing as too much communication. I’m always about ‘repeat, repeat, repeat’. Then I have stakeholders working on the change saying, ‘No, I’m fed up of talking about this’. But there’s a huge gap between those working on the change (talking about it constantly) and those receiving the change (who aren’t as exposed). We need to expose people to the change repeatedly. I’ve read that employees need to hear a message up to five times before taking action. This is similar to the marketing concept that customers need to see a brand about seven times before buying. It’s very similar. Repetition is your friend here. The mind requires consistent exposure. When you feel sick of communicating the change, that’s often when it’s starting to sink in for the audience.

Third: Your mind wants to stay with the familiar and avoid the unfamiliar. This highlights the mind’s natural tendency to perceive new things as a threat or risk, triggering resistance and discomfort. This comes from an evolutionary need to conserve energy and stay safe. When it comes to organizational change, break it into manageable steps. Introduce gradual change through smaller, achievable milestones, allowing people to gain confidence and familiarity. Often, we want to go too fast because we’re pressured to deliver, but we need to push back. We know our employees’ minds won’t receive the information effectively if it’s too much, too soon. We need to bring this understanding to our leaders.

Fourth: Your mind responds to the pictures you create and the words you use. This is powerful; I find it’s the one that drives the most acceptance for change, the most desire to embrace change. ‘Hey, I support this initiative!’ This demonstrates the power of visualization and language. Often underestimated as well. This is where storytelling comes in – creating a compelling narrative around the change. Engage employees on an emotional level, influencing their thoughts and behaviors. I’ll share some examples later of how to engage this visualization aspect.

Finally: Your mind operates on the principle of least effort. This rule highlights the mind’s effort to conserve energy and seek efficient ways to do things. We do that as individuals. We’re always looking for shortcuts. The mind resists activities that demand excessive cognitive load. In this context, I’m a proponent not just of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), but the Minimum Lovable Product (MLP). How can we introduce change iteratively, starting with that first thing people will love, that taps into their WIIFM? Start with that. Also, rely on established patterns familiar to people, or rely on current organizational cycles when introducing change. Don’t always start new; what can you piggyback on? This iterative approach (MVP or MLP) is crucial.

Those are the rules of the mind.

What does this mean? That people have no control? No agency over their actions? We know that’s not true. Even though most actions are automatic, we have innate needs and desires. This is where Self-Determination Theory (SDT) comes in. This involves the belief that you can control your own destiny. It’s a combination of attitudes and abilities leading people to set goals and motivating them. It helps them take initiative to reach those goals.

SDT posits that humans have innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. These play a crucial role in driving motivation and engagement, critical for change management.

Competence is about feeling capable in our work. In change management, it involves providing resources and training to increase confidence in navigating change. It’s about creating an environment where people can experiment. This is about learning by doing. It’s not just theory; it’s providing a platform to learn, experiment, and make mistakes. That’s how you build competence and capability.

Second is autonomy. This is about having control over our actions. Don’t just impose change on me. Don’t just tell me what to do; invite me to co-create the change. Make me part of that. Then I have accountability and a sense of ownership. This involves a bottom-up approach. The top-down and bottom-up approaches have to meet halfway.

Finally, there’s relatedness. This is the need to feel connected. It’s about social connections and relationships. In change management, it’s about creating an inclusive, supportive environment where employees feel connected and valued, through open communication, learning communities, and peer-to-peer support. This is where the ‘heart’ comes into my approach. It’s about tapping into that. By incorporating SDT principles into change management, we tap into intrinsic motivation. This increases individual engagement and creates an environment where change can be successful.

So, we’ve covered the ‘head’ (rules of the mind), the ‘heart’ (Self-Determination Theory), and the ‘hands’ (habits). How does it all come together? I’d like to introduce my modified ADKAR model for change.

There are many change models out there. I’m a practitioner of the ADKAR model by Prosci, and I love this model because it focuses on people. It’s ‘the people side of change,’ as they call it. ADKAR has several steps. They are linear, but implementation isn’t always strictly sequential; for example, you can’t train someone on something without first making them aware. Start with Awareness: ensuring people know what you’re trying to do. This relates to the rule of mind where emotion is more powerful than logic. How are you communicating the change? How are you building awareness around the ‘why,’ the story, the purpose, understanding that the WIIFM differs for employees? How can you understand these differences? How can you understand what is important for one group of people and what’s important for the other? You can do persona mapping and empathy mapping, for example. Crafting your message, storytelling, and knowing your audience are crucial.

Second is Desire: getting people to say, ‘Yes, I support this change’. It’s about visualization. I mentioned visualization earlier – the images and words. What works well here are future scenario or design sessions with employees. People like to dream and feel part of something. Our brain doesn’t perceive the difference between reality and imagination. Tap into that. Get people to imagine because they’ll feel as if it’s true. Your brain doesn’t know the difference. These are useful techniques.

Next is Knowledge. This is all about making the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar unfamiliar. What do we need to help employees unlearn? What do they need to let go of? What do they need to start doing differently? This is about creating that knowledge. Mind mapping is important to understand how habits are formed and what workflows look like. Spend time understanding that.

Then comes Ability. Ability is about translating knowledge into action. I know what to do cognitively, but how do I actually do it? Do I feel comfortable? Do I have the competence we discussed? Do I have that competence to do that? Here, two types of anxiety often arise: Learning anxiety: Can I really learn this? Can I do it? Second, survival anxiety: If I can’t, what will happen to me? These two are real and very connected. To lower survival anxiety, you must help people lower their learning anxiety. It’s like a scale.

Finally, there’s Reinforcement (the R in ADKAR), which is about ensuring people don’t revert to old habits. This relates again to the principle of least effort. How can you make the change easy to sustain? How are you recognizing and rewarding people to continue doing that? This is the ADKAR model, encompassing the rules of the mind at each step. You begin to understand people’s mindset at each stage and how to tap into their innate desires and motivations. This also relates closely to Daniel Pink’s theory of motivation: mastery, purpose, and autonomy. It’s closely related. Bringing these concepts together can make your change process, program, and communication more specific and relevant, helping people absorb the change successfully.

This brings me to my last slide. This slide brings my three concepts together: it’s about treating people as humans. People aren’t commodities or robots. There’s a big push towards personalization in other industries. My question is: When will we realize that only by personalizing change into a format consumable by each individual can we enable real change in the workplace?

This head, heart, and hands approach is about personalizing and humanizing change, bringing together the physical journey (often the biggest focus in organizations) with the emotional and cognitive journeys. It’s about looking at people through the three aspects that drive our actions and behaviors.

Change is a journey, not an event.