We’ve just finished talking with over a hundred members for our new study Building Managers for a Return to Growth, and one of the themes we saw was that there is an unprecedented amount of change happening in sales organizations.

Why?  Well, it’s not necessarily by choice.   Given a mandate to grow but faced with resistant customers, sales organizations realize they need a new playbook.  More companies than ever are re-examining value propositions, go-to-market models, territories and customer interactions.  And they’re recognizing the importance of new rep skills for selling in a complex environment.

But, of course, change is hard.  One of my favorite articles on the subject is from business magazine Fast Company, titled Change or Die.  In it, medical specialists talk about the challenge of getting patients to change behaviors – stop smoking, drinking, eating too much, reduce stresses, and exercise more.

It turns out those five behavioral issues account for 80% of the healthcare budget in the US.  Often, those bad habits lead to expensive heart procedures.  But these are generally only temporary measures; those who receive treatment are told to switch to a healthier lifestyle before heart disease kills them.  After two years, guess how many had changed habits?

10%.  That’s a pretty sad number.

But it shows that even when patients face a shorter life, old habits die hard.

Thankfully, the article provides some answers as well.  Some change efforts have been successful in the medical world.  What can we learn from them (both personally and professionally)?  Read More »

By Andrew Kent

When you think about it, everything you do as managers boils down to one thing: getting other people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.  And getting people to change is hard. 

Fortunately, in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, the best way to motivate people to change is BEER.

As managers and leaders, we often make two big mistakes in change management:

• Putting the “management” before the “change.”  This happens when we focus on convincing people to adopt an initiative, without having taken care of unaddressed barriers or flaws in the initiative’s design—for example, trying to boost adoption of a hard-to-use CRM system.
• Convincing the rational brain but not the emotional brain.  Most change management communication focuses on the reasons why the change is necessary for the business, and how it will benefit the individuals.  Unfortunately, people make decisions with their right brain, and no amount of rational convincing will motivate someone to change long-standing habits and behaviors.

With St. Paddy’s on my mind this week, I’ve put together a framework to overcome both these challenges that would make any green-wearing reveler proud.  For any change management initiative, simply think of BEER: Barriers, Enablers, Expectations, and Reasons: Read More »