How to pronounce "stir"

The way we work is evolving

practically every moment of every day.

New approaches keep emerging

and the pressure to innovate is high.

But too often even the most promising new ideas

can fail to get across the finish line.

Why?

(light music)

I'm Professor David Schonthal,

and I've spent my career thinking

about why some new ideas, businesses and systems succeed,

while others - especially good ones - end up failing.

Over and over, I've seen great ideas

that never make it off the ground,

and it's not because the ideas aren't worthy, many are.

Instead, it's because of how they're introduced

into the world.

As it turns out,

there's some fascinating - and predictable - human factors

that can stop new ideas in their tracks.

My colleague Loran Nordgren and I

call these human factors "Frictions".

Frictions are the psychological forces that oppose change.

The four we've identified are:

Number one: Inertia.

Our overwhelming tendency to stick with what we know,

even though we know the current system is inadequate.

Friction number two: Effort.

The perceived exertion required

in order to make a change happen.

The third Friction is Emotion.

The unintended negative emotions triggered

by the suggested change.

And number four is Reactance.

Our impulse to resist being changed by others,

or what I like to call

the "don't tell me what to do" Friction.

So, when it comes to introducing new ways of working,

how can we overcome these Frictions?

Let me give you a couple of examples.

For example number one,

let's say your company is switching over

to a new internal software system.

You and the tech team are confident

that this change will help make everyone's life easier

and save the company money.

But when you announce it,

you're surprised to meet a lot of resistance.

People aren't eagerly signing up for the training,

and they're saying, "you know what?

I'm cool. I'm just gonna stick with the existing system."

Turns out you've triggered the Friction of Inertia.

People feel like they're being forced to leave a system

that they're comfortable with.

And even though the new software

will make everyone's life easier,

the human instinct to resist change is getting in the way.

One tactic to avoid triggering this Friction

is to shrink the size of the change.

In other words, position the change

not as one big major system shift,

but as a series of smaller experiments.

Could we try this new software out for a month or two,

and then decide whether or not

it should become our new system?

Starting small and framing new ideas as experiments

are useful tactics

because they make the change less intimidating -

plus, people know that experiments can be undone,

or even totally fail.

And here's example number two.

Let's say, and tell me if this sounds familiar,

your company wants the organization

to embrace a new commitment to innovation.

The Friction that this could trigger is effort -

meaning people feel like they need to take on

all of the cognitive effort of figuring out

exactly what this change means for them,

and how to build it into their day-to-day responsibilities.

For employees, directives like "be more innovative"

are ambiguous and often confusing.

Instead of feeling inspired and motivated,

people feel paralyzed.

One tactic for making this idea feel less ambiguous

is road mapping.

Turn this big directive into a series of steps.

Now, getting concrete in this way

can not only help a team see where you're asking them to go,

but they can see how to get there.

Ultimately, the secret to getting buy-in

to new ways of working

is about anticipating the frictions

that your change could stir up,

and then putting just as much thought

into how you introduce those ideas

as you put into designing the idea itself.

The results of doing this can be even more valuable

than generating simple buy-in:

You might even see the transformation of your listeners

from passive recipients of an idea

to enthusiastic champions of new ways of working.

(upbeat jazz music)