I recently received a tweet from @threew that said, "The forces of change are constant. Helping make it happen is a choice." Some may consider it to be a simple if not obvious observation, but I found that it succinctly and subtly captured the complexity of the greatest challenge to change - resistance.

Overcoming this challenge is essential when it comes to business process change. Anyone who has ever tried to introduce business process change can attest to the overwhelming prospect of overcoming resistance to the change. They find this resistance to be unreasonable and exacerbating and many seek the authority to force the change. This authority is seldom obtained and even when it is, rarely triumphs over the resistance.

Instead of combating resistance to business process change, expecting, accepting and managing resistance to change is the recipe for success.

EXPECT RESISTANCE

I like the late and great Michael Hammer's change resistance formula, which I have found to be true in almost every case of business process change. As the tweet implied, all of us has a choice when faced with change. We can choose to embrace change, ignore it, or resist it. Michael consistently found that a group of 100 people faced with a new business process would result in the following:

• 20 Process Cheerleaders - 20% of the people faced with process change will embrace if not outright celebrate it. They will be completely onboard from the start and ready to pick up the banner for the new process and run with it. They are ready to go and hard to stop.
• 60 Fence-sitters - 60% of the people faced with process change will be "on the fence." They won't necessarily have a strong opinion in one direction or the other. They may not outright ignore the winds of change, but it will be difficult to measure any emotion one way or the other.
• 20 Naysayers - 20% of the people faced with process change will be dead-set against it. They think it is a terrible idea because "we have never done it that way before." They know it won't work. They will likely do whatever they can to stop it, either blatantly or covertly. They can't wait to say, "We told you it would never work here."

ACCEPT RESISTANCE

When faced with the 20% of very unhappy and very vocal naysayers, those responsible for the business process change frequently respond emotionally and sometimes defensively. They consider the resistance to be a personal attack on their effort and they subsequently spend much of their time and energy trying to persuade the Naysayers. They do everything they can to convince them the business process change is necessary, reasoned and rational. They almost never succeed. I contend that even if they do succeed, the benefit of altering the perceptions and beliefs of Naysayers is rarely commensurate to the time and energy invested in changing their minds.

Instead, I try to convince new process proponents that they should accept resistance to business process change. Instead of trying to change the minds of Naysayers they should simply separate them from the fence-sitters. Don't fire them...yet. Just don't let them influence those folks who have not yet made up their minds. Accept the fact that some people are inherently against business process changes and there will be little that can be done about it. Don't respond emotionally to this certainty.

MANAGE RESISTANCE

Successful business process change is realized when resistance to the change is managed. The most critical aspects of managing change are:

• Fence-sitters...meet the Cheerleaders - Remember how we separated the fence-sitters from the naysayers? Well, we hooked them all up with the Cheerleaders so we can turn our 20 Cheerleaders into 80 Cheerleaders.
• Executive Sponsorship - Business process change is rarely successful without the sponsorship of Senior Leadership. This leadership is required to establish and consistently reinforce the vision for the business process change, and for overcoming the countless challenges and obstacles to change. Senior Leadership is also critical to overcome the urge to abandon business process changes when mistakes occur - and they will occur. This leadership is critical to instill the audacity, courage, resilience and perseverance to realize the change.
• Select an Organizational Change Management Methodology - My favorite Change Management Methodology is General Electric's Change Acceleration Process (CAP). There are many more. I don't care which one you choose, as long as you find one conducive to your culture and your specific effort and follow it religiously. The methodologies provide all of the tools and tricks to seeing the change to fruition.
• Assign Change Management Accountability - Change rarely takes place on its own. All change needs to managed which means we need somebody assigned accountability for ensuring the change takes place. This person is accountable for ensuring the success of the Change Management Methodology and subsequent approach.
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - I realize this will be inherent to any Change Management Methodology, but it bears repeating. NOTHING replaces communication when it comes to business process change. There will be countless items to communicate to countless people in the organization and this too must be managed thoroughly and relentlessly.
• WIFM (What's in it for me.) - If you don't tell people what is in it for them, they will rarely (if ever) understand, accept and commit to business process change. People are going to ask why and the response must be immediate, succinct, reasonable and rational. All business process change must result in at least one of the following:
• Benefits the person participating in the business process
• Benefits the customer of the business process (improved product or service)
• Benefits the enterprise using the business process
• Benefits other members of the business process team

When somebody asks "Why?" at least one of the above answers should apply and be at the ready. If the answer does not motivate the person to commit to the change, then I argue they don't have the values required to participate in the change. It is time for them to go.

The very last point does a good job of bringing us back to @threew's tweet, ""The forces of change are constant. Helping make it happen is a choice." Some people will simply choose not only to not make it happen. Instead, they resist and sometimes even sabotage the change. This is unfortunate and it underscores something else I learned from Michael Hammer - not everyone will come along. Michael insisted that an organization will always lose some number of folks simply because they refuse to accept the business process change. This must also be acknowledged and accepted by those sponsoring and fostering the change.

Are you responsible for business process changes in your organization? How do you manage business process change? How do you respond to changes? I would love to hear your thoughts.

 Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist