Help Your Employees Embrace Change and Develop a Growth Mindset

Companies worldwide are under pressure to reinvent. They’re rethinking products and services, targeting new customer groups, and looking for productivity gains from generative AI. These changes often take quick decision-making and roll out, but that’s not the only hurdle. 

Reinvention requires adaptability – and that goes against human nature. Managers are key to helping employees overcome resistance to change.

According to PwC, 63% of CEOs worldwide report taking at least one significant action to change how their company creates, delivers, and captures value. That often means reinventing operations and business models. They see these shifts as critical to their organization’s continued viability.

For employees this can mean changes in procedures, personnel, and products. While they likely also see the need for those shifts, getting a new boss or experimenting with new technology can trigger fear and anxiety. 

And that fear often makes people resistant. 

They nod in compliance but keep using old systems and procedures because it’s easier,  they lack skills for the new technology, or they are simply anxious about how the results will play out. These reactions can ground new ventures before they ever really take off.

Managers are a key part of helping employees roll with change. Their own attitude, the way they communicate, track progress and effort all affect how easily workers adapt and grow. Understanding the human side of resistance to change enables managers to help employees and their organizations move forward in today’s quickly evolving workplaces.

Schedule a management workshop for your team: SkillPath's Accelerated Strategic Management Certificate Program, to build leadership skills — including change management .
 

The psychology of change management

Some people do appear to be more open to change; But inside, all brains are wired to avoid it. Things like past experience, trust, and communication are the differentiators.

Routine activities are handled by a portion of our brain (the basal ganglia) that allows us to use less energy on activities we do frequently; i.e., we’re on autopilot. Things like brushing your teeth, driving to work, or repeating tried and true procedures fall into this category.

Doing things in a new way takes more thought. Speaker and author Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., explains: “Change jerks us out of this comfort zone by stimulating the prefrontal cortex, an energy intensive section of the brain responsible for insight and impulse control. But the prefrontal cortex is also directly linked to the amygdala (the brain’s fear circuitry, which in turn controls our flight or fight response).”

Past experiences can alter an individual's receptiveness. If an employee has worked through a merger and been fired in the past, talk of a merger will scare them. If they’ve gone through the steps of switching to a new computer system only to find it’s more complicated, they are likely to be resistant.

Obviously, you can’t change an employee’s past. But people are rational – opening the door for good managers to help. You can make change “safe” and positive. It’s a complicated task and varies from person to person.
 

Here are some things managers can do to ease change:

1. Embrace the change yourself. 

   Find the positive in any change before you announce it to your team. Announcing a change in procedure by saying, “We’re being forced to make this change because…” won’t get workers on board. Keep your explanation simple and understandable. You don’t need to sugarcoat the challenges, but don’t paint them as insurmountable.

2. Involve employees in the process. 

   When possible, leaders should seek input and give employees a voice in the change. When they have a voice and a stake in what’s happening, they’re more likely to support it. If there’s time, focus groups or surveys are a good starting point.

3. Maintain open communications. 

   Talk often as a group about problems that may come up. Let employees vent, voice concerns, and discuss barriers and ideas. This dialogue will help people warm up to ideas, build unity, and help you understand who’s hesitant. Be watchful for silent dissent – people who say nothing but secretly disapprove of the change. Meet with them individually to try to get them to open up so you can better understand their concerns.

4. Create psychological safety. 

   Change and ambiguity force organizations into uncharted territory where mistakes are inevitable. Learning from these setbacks is critical to moving forward. But employees don't want to look incompetent. Encouraging people to share their concerns openly without blame or ridicule will help build trust and make new directions seem less scary.

5. Create a flexible plan and learning goals and celebrate accomplishments. 

   Change doesn’t happen overnight. Diagram what’s ahead so it’s easy to see the steps that will happen to get to the fully functioning “new.” Rather than focusing strictly on performance, set learning goals for your team as they take on new challenges. When short-term goals (or efforts) are accomplished, celebrate. If the plan needs to be adjusted, communicate this. Announce effort and success along the way so people see that they’re making a difference.

6. Have consequences. 

   People must be held accountable if they completely ignore company-wide changes. Without it, peers who do go along with the change face conflict with non-compliant colleagues. The change is also not being fairly evaluated if only a few people are on board.

7. Provide resilience training. 

   Employees will experience less stress when they are prepared. Learning how to problem-solve, deal with stress, and set agile goals can all help employees navigate unpredictability better.

Change management is becoming more and more important in the business world as organizations find themselves evolving regularly, and needing employees to fearlessly step up. A manager’s job is integral to making that happen.