Adoption—What change management was always meant to be

Let’s face it; most of us are in the business of changing behaviours. Consider, for a moment, your organisation. How many emails have you received from your colleagues in the past month that asks you to join an initiative, do something differently, or try another approach to what you are currently doing? My guess is that it’s quite a few. Especially if it’s a budget season or you are in the starting blocks of implementing a new strategy.

Asking others to change their behaviours comes naturally for us. But actually making it happen is another story entirely. Most managers believe that changing behaviours is challenging and while classic methods of change management address some of the concerns, they still mainly focus on influencing, convincing and “selling the benefits” to people.

Adoption is an approach to change management that helps you shift focus from convincing people with “What’s in it for me” value propositions, to consider two other factors that are crucial for change to occur and people to adopt new behaviours. It’s a means of understanding and resolving the resistance to change hurdles by taking a pull perspective rather than a push perspective. Put, in other words: going from “implementing a new process in the team” to “helping the team adopting new ways of working”.

So what’s different with the adoption approach?

The thing that most managers get wrong with the classic approach to change management is to assume that people are rational and the only thing that’s needed for employees to get on board is to nail the “What’s in it for them” statement. Often it’s about communicating either the perceived benefits they will gain or the potential loss they will avoid, by doing the new behaviours.

The thing that most managers get wrong…is to assume that people are rational and the only thing that’s needed for employees to get on board is to nail the “What’s in it for them” statement.

Maybe it’s because we are so used to selling our solutions externally to customers that we take the same approach of “selling” change in our organisations. However, we know that consumers don’t look at benefits vs costs analysis, nor do they buy things solely rationally. So, why would organisational change be any different?

The adoption approach differs in the way that it takes a holistic approach to make change happen. When considering if people will adopt a new behaviour, you take into account three factors:

• First is the problem-solution-fit factor that covers the personal relevance of the solution for an individual.
• Secondly is the identity factor that deals with an individual’s self-image concerning the behaviour.
• Lastly is the barriers factor that includes the hard and soft inhibitors that stand in people’s ways of action.

When is adoption the goto approach?

Adoption is worth considering in any change that is more than just a little complex. If your aks from the people involved is small. When something simple is replacing something else that is just as simple in a context that imposes few obstacles, go ahead with a more heads-on approach. But if you fear that things might get even a little messy, give adoption a chance!

You can use the adoption approach at the start of a change initiative as preparation as well as throughout the implementation, to figure out what the significant roadblocks are and choosing the right tactic as you advance.

Since the adoption approach takes a contextual grip on change management, the organisational size doesn’t matter. It works both for small teams and for larger organisations. What does matter is that the approach requires you to consider and pay close attention to the contextual differences. A solution that might work wonders in one context might not make any sense at all in another.

A closer look at adoption

The adoption approach consists of three factors. Consider them as ingredients in a good stew rather than a specific process to follow. Taking all three aspects into account doesn’t necessarily guarantee adoption, but it will undoubtedly increase your chances. At least it will help you understand what change tactics to use to move forward.

The first factor: problem-solution fit

Problem-solution fit is about people’s perceived relevance of the intended solution. In its essence, it’s about a single question: “Does the new behaviour or solution help achieve my actual goals better than what I have or do today?” If it doesn’t, why should I adopt it?

Problem-solution fit is….about a single question: “Does the new behaviour or solution help achieve my actual goals better than what I have or do today?”

You might recognise this as the pure rational approach, and it’s basically what senior managers traditionally consider. “What’s in it for them”. It tries to address a person’s individual motivation. One downside of only considering this factor is that in most cases, people are not able to distinguish between the alternatives. Example: Will the new customer-centric behaviours solve my problem better than the current inside-out innovative ways of working? It’s simply too complex of a question to answer, taking into account both alternatives in a context that is complex in itself.

Another essential part of problem-solution fit is the level of specificity of the solution or behaviour itself. Behaviours and ways of working that can be tweaked and adapted by people to fit their context have a better chance to be adopted compared to solutions that are predefined and specified to the letter. On the other hand, it takes a higher level of engagement to make things work if they’re not ready to go “out of the box”.

Behaviours and ways of working that can be tweaked and adapted by people to fit their context have a better chance to be adopted compared to solutions that are predefined and specified to the letter.

To figure out the problem-solution fit, start by capturing people’s attitudes around the new behaviours. Do they hate it, or love it in contrast to what they already do today?

The second factor: identity

A persons’ identity is their image of themselves, and it guides their preferences for what they buy, how they interact with others and why they chose to act in certain ways. Identity answers the question “Do people like me, do things like that?”. Self-image is something people in a professional context usually don’t talk about or reveal that quickly. In contrast to personal identities that can be very visible in terms of symbols and signs (think Metalheads, cross-fit instructors or Harley Davidson enthusiasts), our corporate identity is rarely that explicit. However, when something new is not inline with our identities, it becomes apparent.

A mismatch in identity can be a genuine hurdle for adoption of new behaviours and ways of working. Even though the problem-solution fit might be great, the identity mismatch might be in the way, and they will still not choose to adopt it.

Let me give you an example. Let say that through several months of hard work of trial and errors, you and your engineering team have discovered a new way of working with complex issues in project management. It’s cheap, it’s easier to do than current practices, and it provides better overall results. Your colleagues in marketing discover your new practice and are impressed. They ask curious questions, and you helpfully explain how it works and the principles behind it. After a long dialogue regarding all the technicalities the people from marketing claims “this would be great in our department too”, and then carries on to do things the way they have always done it. The dialogue was hypothetical all along. The identity mismatch is simply too powerful; people like them (marketing) don’t do things like that (IT).

There are a couple of ways to capture the identity of a person. The easiest is to define a group identity by looking at who the person hangs out with, interacts with and what is the community they willingly seek out. Human beings are inherently social creatures, and we like to be around people that are similar to us. Like the famous proverb “Bird of feather, flock together”, we like to be part of a herd. Keep in mind that an individual can be part of several communities and play different roles to fit into their specific norms. The method for understanding the identity is observations, interviews and community analysis. What we are trying to answer is the question “How do they belong?”

Human beings are inherently social creatures, and we like to be around people that are similar to us. Like the famous proverb “Bird of feather, flock together”, we like to be part of a herd.

The third factor: barriers

Barriers for adoption are primary external constraints and come in different shapes and forms in organisations. In essence, it’s about “What stands in the way for people to adopt the new behaviour?”. It’s a broad definition and covers everything in peoples context that requires effort to do and affects their choices and behaviours.

Barriers can be the “hard stuff”, such as:

• existing processes
• lack of knowledge and tools
• contradicting performance evaluation systems
• organisational structure.

But it can also be more on the “softer” side of things such as:

• people are stuck in the status quo
• being forced to change (people generally don’t like to be forced to do something)
• lack of social reinforcement (no one else is doing it).

The method for understanding barriers is to understand the context people are working in.

You need to understand what people actually do (patterns) and why they do it (goals), how they go about doing it (resources) and what stands in their way (constraints). Answering these questions gives you a complete picture of the obstacle course people defeat every day at work.

How do you start

Changing behaviours and ways of working using the adoption approach can be a complex and deep-digging undertaking. But it does not have to be. In a limited context, the trick is to get started, see what works and take it from there. We suggest three alternative ways of getting started with the adoption approach. Pick the one that fits your context best.

Alternative 1. Get a deeper understanding of what people in your team do and why they are doing it. You can do it in your one-on-one talks, by observing what the team does or by running a workshop. The activities should give you an idea of what small alternations in the context you can do to make adoption easier.

Alternative 2. If you have an idea of a preferred solution to a problem, as a new practice or ways of working, take a step back from the method itself and imagine what behaviours it’s supposed to induce. Ask yourself: “What’s the smallest thing they can do, that will be inline with the new solution?”. Then figure out what else you can do, to make these small behaviours and actions to take place. The changes you do should be small, and you can get inspiration from both problem-solution fit, identity and barriers.

Alternative 3. Experiment with removing barriers! Just start by doing a small change in context and pay close attention to why it worked or not basically building up your knowledge of the context in reverse. Focus on addressing and removing one of the more prominent barriers that the team experiences right now. Removing barriers and making something dead simple to do increases the chance that people will do it regardless of if the behaviour aligns well with their identity and is relevant for them. However, they might not keep up the action for that long, for that you need the other two factors.

Vadim Feldman
Founder and Management Consultant