Catalytic leaders not only speed up change, but they also help people adopt change. Change is even difficult at times for people that have the energy for change. When you understand how to help people process a change, you do them and the organization a big favor. Change is part of life, but it brings the unknown with it. That is what makes us uncomfortable. It is easy to be comfortable with the current situation, even if it is bad, because it is known. If you help people adopt change, you also help them overcome the fear of failure.

Change Includes Failure

Failure is also part of those times you succeed. When you see failure as part of learning, you reduce or even remove the fear of failure. Of course, this does not mean that you want to fail. On the contrary, you want succeed, but do not see failure as a roadblock. It is just another step or part of the process. It helps you learn what works and what doesn’t. When you maintain excellent effort without fearing failure, you give yourself the best chance to succeed. If you make a mistake from lack of effort, that is not acceptable. So, it is not about just accepting failure, it is about learning how to use failure to help success. It is time to cultivate a different mindset on how to fail in the process of succeeding.

Change is Difficult for Many

People struggle with change, because it is unknown. When you help people see a reason for the change, that always helps. And, if you know the 30-50-20 Principle, you know how to approach people during a change. In a change effort, there are three categories of people: resisters, undecided majority and early adopters. The principle helps you know where to focus your efforts to be the most effective. Additionally, the ADKAR tool is a good method to assess the Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement of the team related to the change needed.

Good Change Processes

Do you need to make a change? Here are some good change processes.  Actually, we believe any change effort needs the basic elements of the 1 Timeless Process (THP + ALA + Persist) – see course 1 for details. When you focus clearly on the end result you want, understand where you are now, and develop a path to get what you want, that is a good change process. In this section, you get some good tools and approaches. While there is no guarantee, these checklists and approaches move the odds to your favor.