Comfort-zones are dangerous places. It gives us a false sense of security and makes us believe that by simply doing what we’re doing now, we will okay. The last few months just reiterated that even when we are not ready, everything will change. How do we best manage these situations in a way that minimizes stress for everyone involved?
Change leaders are characterized by certain traits, including confidence in their abilities, willingness to take risks, openness to seize opportunities, expect surprises, attitude to make things happen and ability to identify and deal positively to resistance to change.
There are 2 main types of change:
- Transformational change: Resulting in major and comprehensive redirection of the practice.
- Incremental change: smaller changes made frequently to align systems, people and practices with the practice’s strategy.
Kurt Lewin describes the change process as unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Here is what you can do in your practice to manage the process.
- Unfreezing
This is the phase where things are unstable – the need for change is established and created and managers or senior veterinarians in the practice need to establish good relationships with all people involved to help them realise that the current way of doing things is not effective. This will help minimize expressed resistance to change and help get buy-in from staff at all levels within the practice.
2. Changing
This is where the changes are implemented and can be an exceptionally difficult period for staff members who like the status quo. New and more effective protocols are procedures are identified and the process of choosing what to change starts. It can involve tasks, operating procedures, anaesthetic protocols, culture, computer systems, adopting new technology, people and the structure. Actions are taken to put all the changes in place and during this time it is crucial to take all the staff on the journey and create new habits.
Certain strategies can be implemented for leading the change:
- Force-coercion
This comes from a place of power and authority, rewards and punishments are use and the changes are legitimized by research or the practice owner/manager. Employees are likely to resist this method if they do not comprehend need or legitimacy of the changes.
- Rational Persuasion
Empirical arguments and rational persuasion techniques can be used to get buy-in from staff members. Credible knowledge, logical arguments, facts and expertise help to persuade staff to make the desired changes.
- Shared Power
Shared power is one of the ways that create commitment and change is supported through personal values. Staff members feel that their participative efforts will drive the success of the changes and although this is a slower process, the commitment is higher and it will help create the changes long-term.
3. Refreezing
After all of the desired changes are made, the stabilization phase happens. This is where everyone within the practice accept the changes and continue with the new behaviour. It is essential that the practice provides any necessary resources to support the new norm and positive reinforcement techniques are highly valuable to make the changes stick!
It is important to understand why your staff may want to resist change:
- Fear of the unknown
- Work overload
- Poor timing
- Disruptive habits
- Lack of purpose
- Loss of Control
- Loss of confidence
- Loss of face
By understanding why they may resist, you can better navigate the situation, address concerns and use participative communication, support and facilitation, education and negotiation tactics to get everyone in the practice to agree to the new ways.
Have you had to implement changes in your practice? What did you find the most useful to get staff to cooperate?
Reference
Schermerhorn, J.R., Bachrach, D.G. (2017). Exploring Management, 6th Edition. Wiley Publishing
