Some say Embrace Change, Change is good right? Why is it that so many people in companies fight it with their last dying breath?  Those that fight are doing it for very simple reasons that make perfect sense to me anyways, because we all do it.  You see people are constantly learning, obsorbing information from experiences around them, interactions with people, groups, things, etc... Now when a change occurs in their life or in this case in their job, when this happens for the first time we are fine with it, things change around us constantly and we adapt.  But what happens when a change occurs and it just doesnt go very smoothly?  Well in a company, this is bad plain and simple. 

When change occurs in a company, especially big strategy changes and this change is managed poorly people learn from this.  They decide right off the bat to be critical and as soon as the change starts making their working lives miserable they fight it and if the change has already occured, the next time change happens in the working place they become extremely adverse to any change, overly critical and darn right resistant.  That's right resistant -- and who could blame them?  If change is managed poorly in any company (big/med/small) it affects more than the people driving the change, it tarnishes the employees trust in the idea that change is good and should be embraced.  So how do you avoid this issue or even deal with an environment/company that has a sour taste in it's mouth from a poorly managed/implemented change?  You apply Change Management principles, yes there is such a thing.

I managed to plow through a very long book, as interesting as it was -- it was had some dull moments.  "Diffusion of Innovations" by Everett M. Rogers (no relation).  In this book Rogers talks about getting an idea, technology or any new thing really diffused or accepted by a particular group of people.  This group could be an organization, a social group, a customer, a client, your mom and dad... it could be anyone.

• "There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things....whenever enemies have the ability to attack the innovator, they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable" -- Niccolo Machivelli, The Prince (1513)

Ha, even in 1513 people knew that change was tough!! I digress, so back to Rogers theory of change and how to get it right. Rogers believes there are basically four elements in diffusion, below is a list of those four elements and Rogers definitions from his book.

1. The Innovation: an idea, practive, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.
2. Communication Channels: The essence of diffusion process is the information exchange through which one individual communicates a new idea to one or several others.
3. Time: The time dimension of the diffusion process, highly coupled with the communication piece, has 3 parts 1) the innovation-decision process (adoption or rejection by the individual) 2) the relative lateness or earliness by which the innovation is adopted 3) the third is the rate of adoption by the number of members who are the adoptees
4. Social System: Here is the big hitter, this is where people get involved and screw it all up (not a Rogers quote).  Defined as a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common goal. -- (so they think, the problem is that everyone has different views of what the goal is and this makes things messy)

The four main elements are pretty straight forward, you need something to apply diffusion (innovation introduction), you have channels that you use to communicate this innovation in a time frame to a particular social group.  This social group either rejects or accepts it over a period of time.  Rogers believes that in order for a innovation to be widely accepted in the social system it must be communicated well and within a certain time frame. In order to gain acceptance of lets say a new process/strategy in a large company you would need executive sponsorship (aka a Champion) that really does care, stays on top of it and doesnt forget.  The second item is a change agent, someone who can sell the idea to the social system and remind the champion about how great this innovation is so they dont forget. This person takes the vision and makes it a reality with the help of a qualified team.  The main job of the change agent is to help the social system understand the innovation, which in turn would help the eventual acceptance of the innovation.  

I constantly see change being pushed in companies, schools, churches with little change management.  Have you ever sat in a meeting where people are seriously angry because the management team constantly changes their mind, modifies the innovation over and over again, creating rework, anxiety, etc...?  Well I have, about 75% of the time it's because there wasnt any serious thought given into how the innovation would be diffused into the organization and because of this the innovation doesnt have near the affect it could of had if it was managed better in terms of change management.

I won't go on and on about Roger's theory of "Diffusion of Innovations", I recommend you read his book if you're curious enough about this topic.  It has helped me in my job countless times and I believe it definitely applies to RIA technology projects.

• References: 
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
  • "Diffusion of Innovations" by Everett M. Rogers