In my last post, I spoke about focusing on the business rather than the technology.  Technology certainly has a big part to play, but it’s an enabler of transformation rather than the reason behind it. At the end of the day, if you are transforming your business, changing the way you do things (processes) will play a part and the way staff are equipped (including technology) will probably play a part. The one thing for certain in the next generation enterprise is that some element of change will be involved. If the business needs a radical transformation, it is inevitable that the people involved are going to experience change. How do you manage this change? There is no shortage of books and research on change management;some of it very academic, some of it very pragmatic, some of it a combination of both. One principle that I have found particularly useful is a simplified version of Lewin’s force field analysis. Kurt Lewin was a German-American psychologist who did a lot of research into human behaviour.  One could easily get drawn into the complexities behind these theories, but this is how I think of this force field analysis in a simple and practical way.

• You need people to change
• In people’s minds there are forces resisting this change (negative) as well as encouraging this change (positive)
• Your job as a change agent is to simply make the positive force strong and the negative force weak!

Let’s say for example, that you are introducing a new “twitter-style” microblogging tool with the idea of improving sharing, openness and innovation. You need to get a critical mass of users for the tool to become useful. By piloting with a small initial *representative* group, you can get an idea of what people like about it, and what they don’t like. After some analysis you may come up with a simple model that looks something like this...


Positive (driving) Forces Negative (restraining) Forces
Know what's going on ............. It’s for the kids
Reduce email volume ---------> Just another thing to learn
Get answers quickly <----- I don’t have time

Now all your plan needs to focus on is increasing the driving force and decrease the restraining force. This is mainly through communication and training. Communicate the benefits clearly and proactively counter the negative arguments through education. Think of it as an internal marketing campaign: who is your audience? what’s the new process/tool going to do for them? why should they care? Think about what’s in it for them, and then tell them clearly! If there is not much in it for them, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place!

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