Technology has enabled disruption across all industries in ways we never imagined. This gives us Change Management types a lot of opportunities and challenges to think about when it comes to how these changes drive peoples’ performance and behaviors as technology providers, enablers, and consumers.

Changes in technology offerings have drastically altered consumer behavior – everyone feels that impact daily.  Upstream, these technological advances also influence new behaviors and performance factors for technology and service providers.

In organizational changes, Technology, Process, and People are the standard domains of change for any implementation. Traditionally, communications and training courses on new technology and processes are how you tactically get people ready for major changes. But, in today’s world, it isn’t enough. We need to be proactive about evolving a technology team’s behavior in addition to just  learning how to use and deploy new technology solutions.

Let’s walk through an example.

Mel Corp. has decided on investing in specific technology changes to run their business. They want to create cloud native solutions that leverage architecture principles  that enable greater technology and business agility. The outcome of greater agility will create business value by reducing time to delivery and overhead maintenance. Sounds great!

A key question to ask in planning how to achieve these outcomes and goals for Mel Corp. is: “How do these desired outcomes rely on what people do?” or “What behaviors contribute to the desired outcomes?”  Here are some statements that the Mel Corp. team lead came up with:

• “We cannot leverage agile technology if we are not also agile in the way we think and act. I don’t want my team to be afraid to say, ‘Go’, just because they are afraid of being reprimanded. Failing constructively is part of making progress.”
• “We cannot leverage new agile technologies if we are not looking for ways to apply them to our solutions. I don’t want my team to continuously reapply the same solution. Think outside the box!”

This is great. Now we can start thinking through what behaviors support those statements, what may inhibit those behaviors, and what types of actions can start to incentivize how people act and think.

• “We cannot leverage agile technology if we are not also agile in the way we think and act. I don’t want my team to be afraid to say, ‘Go’, just because they are afraid of being reprimanded. Failing constructively is part of making progress.”
  • Behaviors: Empowered, Accountable
  • Behavior barrier today: Too much red tape, fear of putting your name on it
  • Ideas on actions to enable and reward:
    • Simplify governance and sign-offs to be less cumbersome.
    • Directly empower specific individuals to make the final decision in certain areas. Communicate this decision broadly.
    • Forums to publicly reward the results of faster delivery and decision making while also exposing areas of improvement to set realistic standards and expectations.

• “We cannot leverage new agile technologies if we are not looking for ways to apply them to our solutions. I don’t want my team to continuously reapply the same solution. Think outside the box!”
  • Behaviors: Innovative, solution-oriented
  • Behavior barrier today: Time to research new options, too much red tape to test new ideas
  • Ideas on actions to enable and reward:
    • Open solution creation  to larger group of people as friendly competition and have them present different options with pros and cons implementation assessment
    • Invest in lab and learning environments for rapid testing and concept build outs.
    • Reserve time, reward commitment, and set ROI expectations for knowledge development ad training opportunities.

Even though this is high-level and theoretical, the concepts and approach are easily applied and quickly become real. We just have to commit to acknowledging that strong technology delivery relies on strong people. To find or develop strong people you need to thoughtfully define deliberate behavioral outcomes that you are looking for so that you can begin taking the right steps.

Melodie Tang is an experienced Change Management Consultant, and doer of things that need to get done. Get in touch for inquiries, coffee, or a lakeside jog by reaching out – melodie.tang@gmail.com.