Are You Change-Friendly?
“If You Don’t Like Change, You’ll Like Irrelevance Even Less”
That’s what Army General Eric Shinseki said, and it applies to all of us regardless of business.
Trouble is, studies show that most change efforts fail. Period. Why? It’s not for lack of time or money or consultants. Those resources are in rich supply. It’s not lack of effort. The marketplace of ideas has an abundance of hard workers. Intelligence isn’t the issue. Smart, eager people are all around us. And it’s not because would-be 
change practitioners don’t “organize” properly. Change project flow charts are as ubiquitous as Blackberrys and iPhones.
The problem is that change is too often regarded as a linear sequence when it’s in fact more of an organic process. Success with change is less like installing an air conditioner and more like growing a garden, less like engineering an event and more like navigating a journey. Success with change does require skill with “organizational” things like adjusting priorities and deploying resources.
But even more importantly, success with change requires skill with the “people stuff” – challenging paradigms, conducting honest dialogue, earning and keeping trust, and collaborating in ways that foster enthusiasm, ingenuity, and real synergy.
The People Stuff
The “people stuff” is what our Change-FriendlySM process is all about. In this context, “friendly” is not intended to connote coddling or indulgence. And it certainly doesn’t imply a warm and fuzzy, hands-off approach to serious issues. Change-Friendly is a behavioral protocol. It produces successful change by acknowledging the sentiments and leveraging the individual gifts of people affected by the change, whether as champions, agents, sponsors, or targets.
The Change-Friendly process may occasionally entail tough love, but it always operates from a platform of respect and caring, not intimidation and contention.
It gets results.
Mouse over the following elements to view the Change-Friendly process.
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Related Resources
› To learn more about our Change-Friendly approach, click on
“The Challenge of Change.” (PDF)
› How important is effective Implementation?
› For a free consultation on change challenges in your organization,
click here.
› Coming in 2012! A new book by Rodger Dean Duncan,with a foreword by Stephen M.R. Covey. The Change-Friendly book will be accompanied by a two-day Change-Friendly workshop prepared by world-class curriculum designers.