The Importance of Understanding How Organizations React to Change

Understanding how organizations react to change is critical for major progress in any line of work. This is especially true as organizations face changes that transform their business.

When we understand how organizations react to change, we’re better able to manage changes that come our way. Change, when managed correctly, can ultimately be best thing that happens to an organization. We cannot make impactful progress without change.

But there’s a process to how organizations react to change, however big or small it may be.

Friction builds among those affected by the coming change, which causes productivity to drop. This, however, is not a cause for alarm or an indication of the direction for the entirety of the change process. Especially when taking into account major organizational changes, those involved won’t know what to expect at first. They’ll be unsure of what else will be changing in the culture, operations, and deliverables (among many other factors) of the organization, and they may even question how their previous role will fit in new processes.

As personnel accept and embrace the change, the curve begins to flip. Those impacted begin to understand the changes coming in, the effects of the changes, and what it means for them. When they know what to expect, people will begin to accept and embrace the change. With this, friction decreases, and productivity rises—as you can see in the chart we’ve created to visualize this process.

By understanding how organizations react to change, we can begin to implement effective change management techniques to help diminish the curve. We’ll be sharing a lot more about effective change management on our blog and social media, but today, let’s start with one of the most important factors: communication.

Proper communication can be the key to mitigating friction when facing organizational change. Communicate early (so no one feels left behind), often (so everyone is up-to-date), and transparently (to minimize confusion about what’s to come). By doing this, we promote faster acceptance and adoption of changes needed to help our organizations progress.

For more about the principles of this model, check out this informative video from our CEO and President, Scott Thompson.