systematicHR

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Nucleating agents for change

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Interesting thing about water.  You can pretty significantly influence the temperature at which water freezes  simply by introducing an agent to it.  But there are other times when water actually should freeze, when it is pure and below the freezing temperature, but that water can be held in a liquid state at just below the normal freezing temperature until a nucleating agent is introduced.   We’ve seen in it a variety of environments whether it’s in movies or what not.  I remember a recent mythbusters show (for those of you who watch discovery channel in the U.S.) where they were able to keep a liquid in the liquid state, but once the first ice crystal was introduced, a rapid chain reaction occurred and the rest of the liquid formed into ice in seconds.

HR is much the same.  Any time you are introducing change to the organization, there are times where change happens naturally, and other times when change has to be strongly influenced.  Unfortunately for us, we need those nucleating agents more often than not.  The problem is that we don’t always realize until it’s too late that we needed an agent, or we didn’t know which agent to choose.

I completely realize that we are all sick and tired of the concept of change management, but all too often as I visit my clients, change is treated in the same fashion that it was 10 years ago.  We push out training programs, and we attempt to do the same type of communications.  Let’s be the first to admit to ourselves: HR has no flair for marketing.  We’re in HR partly because we are not salespeople – often times we don’t even understand salespeople.  But sell we must, and when we realize that we don’t have those abilities/competencies, it’s time to find the nucleating agents that will sell for us, and spread the word – forming ice crystals in seconds instead of… well, never.

The best nucleating agents are those who are not only already on our side, but those who are obviously influential.  There are those who have broad networks, and others who simply have the right connections to other important people.  One would think that in Human Resources, we would know who these people are – but we don’t.  In the organizations that do understand that they are not the most effective marketing arm for new rollouts, HR solicits the help of VP’s to communicate the message and brand.  In effect, we have managed to enhance our training and communications materials with and additional layer: change management by edict.  This is not to say that VP level communications are not necessary – in fact their level of sponsorship is very necessary.  But when rolling out new manager portal tools (for example), the people who are going to sell are not the VP’s, but other managers who buy into the product, decide that it is more effective than the prior state, and will selflessly market it for you.  These, indeed, are the true nucleating agents in the organization.

As sick and tired as you all are of hearing people talk about change management, it is still under-budgeted and improperly deployed.  As sick as you are of it, I’m equally sick of most of us not getting it right.  I totally understand that when we are in the throes of implementation, we’re all heads down and grinding away at table configuration and testing, but that is no forgiveness and excuse for messing up the end user rollout.  Better to get the audience right and miss a bit on the config.  So here’s me, asking yet again, find your nucleating agent.  Deploy them well.  Get buy-in and adoption in the seconds it takes to crystalize liquid when the right conditions are met.

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2 responses to “Nucleating agents for change”

  1. Lynn Sardonia Avatar
    Lynn Sardonia

    I totally agree that many organizations, especially IT groups, do not understand the need for managing change in people not just the “version-control” component of code change. You provide a great analogy that explains the role of the change ambassador/change agent. Thanks for highlighting this topic.

    Lynn Sardonia
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnsardonia
    http://twitter.com/LynnSardonia

  2. TNS Employee Insights Avatar
    TNS Employee Insights

    You are so right in saying people are sick and tired of hearing about change management. But, just like you go on to state, that doesn’t mean it isn’t extremely important. Thanks for posting!