by Dr. Ilga Vossen, Stephan Kahl, Odile Moreau, Caroline Schäfer & Yannick Penz
This is the second in a series of articles on leadership and Agile transformation. Thought leaders from Deloitte and Scaled Agile worked together to share their insights and advice.
Have you recently heard executives demanding, “we need to become more data-centric, agile at scale or AI-driven”? Have you read requests in corporate newsletters or interviews such as, “we need to increase supply chain resilience, lower carbon footprints, increase cyber security and compliance”?
The need to move the needle through technological and organizational transformation to resolve multifaceted issues is present and pressing in many organizations.
At the same time, there is a huge pressure on delivery and performance in daily business. Both pressure points contribute to an increasing workload, a sentiment of unresting and never-ending change demands and unsettling emotions. In a nutshell, the organizational energy is stressed out and exhausted.
Then, despite strong efforts in the workforce, not much change is happening in either direction. Does this sound familiar? Your organization might be in change fatigue.
What is Change Fatigue?
Change fatigue can be described as a mental and sometimes even physical exhaustion towards change initiatives, making it impossible for people to work towards the change.
Think of our capacity for change like a muscle. It can be trained to be stronger, but if it’s continuously stimulated strongly, energy will drain at some point eventually. Ultimately, this can result in chronic change fatigue and inability to bring up energy. Transformations demand changes in behavior, learning and building new skills. All of which requires high mental effort. As change fatigue paralyzes the whole organization, we are well advised in reducing it or avoiding it in the first place if we want to achieve real transformation.
To understand change fatigue and how to tackle it, we first need to understand which aspects create and drain mental capacity.
In coaching sessions, we observe the core drivers of mental load with regards to transformations:
Expectations Toward Organizational Change
Expectations are primarily shaped through experiences of the affected people (direct or observed) with previous change initiatives and through communication by leadership. Mental load increases if the expected outcomes of the transformation are negative for the individual.
If the expectations towards the change are primarily negative, it will lead to anxiety and stress and drain mental capacity. Similarly, uncertainty drains capacity. We explore the effect of why agile transformations require effective leadership, but most importantly, if the workforce expects that the change initiative is just a management fad and will soon be replaced by another initiative, it is most unlikely for anyone to engage in change activities.
Effort to Transform vs. Effort to Maintain Daily Operations
If the organizational change is inflicted in bold steps, this leads to more mental load of course. If on top of that daily operations already require more time than available, we have an organization perfectly set up for achieving change fatigue instead of real transformation.
Additional to this, there may be individual issues draining mental capacity such as health or family.
What to Do About It?
Although these patterns are common, there are ways to combat change fatigue. Simply reducing mental load is not enough if the organization is already experiencing it.
Acknowledge The Situation
Leaders and Agile Coaches need to create room for conversations and openly acknowledge the draining sentiment of change fatigue. Allowing the expression of exhaustion in a psychological safe space despite the pressure on performance helps reduce negative emotions.
Find The Root Cause & Act Accordingly
Next, of course, leaders are well advised to discuss and analyze the cause of the change fatigue, as not all factors explored may be equally relevant, and act accordingly.
How to Avoid Change Fatigue in the First Place
Are you about to start a transformation initiative and you don’t see your organization fatigued from other initiatives already? Here’s how to avoid change fatigue before it sets in:
1. Make the Target Desirable
Highlight benefits of the transformation for your workforce. These will most likely not equal the economic benefits of the company. Numbers don’t inspire; a better work life does. Incentivize desired behaviors and get role models for change into the spotlight. It’s all about creating positive expectations towards the change.
2. Descale daily operations to make room for change
Make sure your people have room for change. It’s not enough to speak about prioritizing change. Leadership needs to deprioritize other running initiatives to free up time from their workforce, especially in the beginning of the transformation.
3. Speak With One Voice
Show courage and ensure that your whole leadership is committed to the change. There can be no room for ambiguity in communication. Inconsistency leads to uncertainty and fuels mental load.
4. Invite, Don’t Inflict
Create participants instead of affected colleagues. Co-create the transformation.
While it may be tempting to pursue many change initiatives at the same time, organizations tend to achieve more by doing less. Descale the work, provide focus on what’s most important, and create real change.
This article the second out of ten in a series entitled Leadership & Change in Agile Transformations.