Currency for Change – Transformation Needs and Roadblocks


Business leaders, those who run our organizations, continually look for strategies that deliver growth, synergy, profit and increased market share, to name a few.  They are judged and compensated based upon their ability to deliver results around financial or operational focal points.  Those leaders who manage a publicly traded company take on the added burden of providing predictable quarterly results year after year in order ensure a stable and growing stock price.

Many times new strategies require changes to your organization.  When attempting transformative organizational change, our focus is on changing the way that an organization operates at an organic level.  However our Leadership is rarely focused at this level, rather their focus is on the expected benefits of the desired change. They often fail to address the real organic element necessary for change, which are the very people who help manage and run their organization.  People will determine the final success or failure of any particular change management effort.

Change, the type that transforms an organization is often done so out of perceived need or stress event, such as new competitor or competitive products or disruptive technology.  Though the stress/threat may be very real to the survival of the organization.  Though the threat may be real the people working for the organization may not necessarily be motivated by changing how they work in order to respond to the perceived threat.  The reasons for this can be:

  • We may not be connected to the threat in a real way, we don’t see how the threat impacts our job.
  • We may not agree that the threat is real.
  • We may not agree with or believe that the requested changes are the right approach or strategy.
  • We simply may not care.

We are ultimately are creatures of habit, what worked in the past should work for us in the future, we come to expect outcomes based upon these past experiences.

Our natural world provides us with examples of how change is handled when stress is applied.  In nature change is a natural state and happens without negotiation, let me repeat that:

 Change happens without negotiation.

Trees don’t talk to hills to see if they are ok that more trees are grown, the change happens naturally based upon the need of the environment not the want of the trees.  Organic change happens in reaction to a stress event and then the system responds by initiating change that provides the appropriate reaction in order to bring the system back into a steady state.  In this example there is no currency for change between actors in the system as the system operates in a manner which brings the system back into a static or healthy state without applying change management techniques to encourage adoption of the change.

Large human systems are unlike our natural counterpart on multiple levels, primarily due to the people who are the actors of the system.  Natural systems form a comprehensive whole were all of the sub systems work in synergy on a grand scale.  Human systems however don’t share this synergistic behavior and as such operate independently of each other and the stress of one organization may not have any association or perceived dependency with another organization.

When human organizations inject change into their system in response to a perceived threat they trigger a broad set of activities at impact people in that system.  Change in both our natural world and our organizational world has the primary goal of keeping the system healthy and strong, but whereas the natural system accepts change without negotiation the human system involves potentially significant negotiation which has the negative effect of diluting the positive impacts the desired changes are expected to deliver.

Why is this?  Much of it surrounds not taking the time to communicate WHY the change is necessary and understanding the currency of our organization to accept the change.

What is Currency for ChangeIt is the perceived value that an individual will derive by participating in change.

Human systems require people to participate in change.  However in order to get them to fully engage in the change process we need to communicate WIIFME or What’s In It For ME?

Change requires that the people in your organization do some of the following:

  1. Learn new things (software, processes, tools, etc..)
  2. Take on new roles (Project Manager to Scrum Master)
  3. Report to new people
  4. Change the way that they manage
  5. Change the way that the project manage
  6. Change the way that you plan
  7. Change the way they are compensated

Currency then is what an organization is willing to ‘pay’ people in their currency in order get them to actively engage in change.  Currency is individual and ultimately relates to how an individual perceives their place, influence and power within the organization, this will drive what their specific currency will be.

Currency for change relates closely with the motivational needs of employees.  For example, though we may understand why we need to exercise and eat better for a longer life we may not be motivated sufficiently to do this consistently long term unless we identify the real currency we require to make the necessary changes.

There are many different needs based theories that can help define individual currency for change:

  1. Maslows’ hierarchy of needs:
    1. Physiological
    2. Safety
    3. Social
    4. Esteem
    5. Self-Actualization
  2. ERG Theory:
    1. Existence
    2. Relatedness
    3. Growth
  3. Acquired Needs Theory
    1. Need for Achievement
    2. Need for Affiliation
    3. Need for Power
  4. Three-Factor Theory for Employee Motivation
    1. Equity/Fairness
    2. Achievement
    3. Camaraderie

Parsing these different theories we come up with a few general themes:

  1. People need to feel safe
  2. People need to feel achievement
  3. People need to be acknowledged
  4. People need to feel connected to others
  5. People need to learn or challenged

When we begin to craft a change management plan for our organization we need to engage in conversation that explores the currency of the people who will be engaged in the change.

When beginning the process of change we must clearly identify the Why as part of understanding and leveraging an individuals’ currency for change.  If you can’t clearly identify the why people need to change you won’t be able to develop the What and the How in order to sufficiently engage people at their motivational level which we translate into currency.

Understanding what people require in order to be incented to change, translates into currency because change doesn’t come without investment and that relates to WIIFE, what am I going to receive if I change?  And unfortunately simply staying employed may not be enough, especially with highly skilled and sought after knowledge workers, you must engage them in a much different manner and their currency won’t be continued employment or more money (typically).

What does currency look like?

  1. Enagagement
    1. Allow more control and input with respect to the change to your entire organization, don’t make it a one way street with no negotiation. Unlike our natural world where change happens without negotiation, people in your organization are the source of successful change management.
    2. Benefit – It’s doubtful that your change management team has thought of everything that is required to make the change successful. Engaging your organization to participate in building the strategic direction of the change will create strong ownership of the change.
    3. Needs Met
      1. Need for Affiliation
      2. Social
      3. Esteem
      4. Camaraderie
  1. Failure
    1. We must understand that when we change our organization, the model by which we manage our organization also changes. Leaders and managers who have been successful in the organization are now faced with potentially dramatic changes with respect how they will manage and how they are perceived as successful.  Their very power base is threatened.  Encouraging a culture of failure as part of your change management efforts is essential for successful change.  Failure is not the goal, rather the mechanism that we use to encourage learning, because at its heart change is about learning and we all learn differently and we have different currency with respect to how we learn.
      1. Needs Met:
        1. Need to learn or be challenged.
        2. Safety
      2. Recognition
        1. There are people in your organization who have vast experience and domain knowledge which has been vital to the success of the organization. Though these people may be the most resistant to change, they can conversely be your biggest proponents for change if approached the correct way.  These individuals often want more recognition than material things such as more money.  They fall more along the needs matrix identified by Maslow, they are looking more for Social and Physiological needs to be met but also need to feel safe during the change.
          1. Needs Met:
            1. Safety
            2. Acknowledgement

As you think of taking on transformational change you need to start the conversation around the needs and currencies of the people who are going to make your change management successful.

Change is hard and when not engaged properly is destined to under deliver or worse fail completely.

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