There is a general statement that people like to stay where they are and hate changes. And this statement is repeated so often that almost everybody believes that it’s an absolute truth. People resist to change their everyday routine but become even more dubious when speaking about professional activity. And it comes to a trade-off between this resistance to any change and the growing consumer demand for new goods and services especially in the IT sphere. So, what are the reasons for this? Do we face a belief that appear at the genetic level? Or is it a conclusion based on the previous bad experiences of improper change management? So, which of this two should be addressed if we need to improve the situation?

I don’t suggest to choose between personnel training and good change management policy. I believe that every company and enterprise need to implement the best practices of a change management including clear and unambiguous processes, proper communication in advance and so on. We need to prepare our people, give them good instructions and be honest while answering questions. Don’t forget about motivation and explaining the goals and benefits. But how to prepare yourself?

My two cents include two advices – be ready for other people’s emotions and track the change process as much as possible. Why? Here are some thoughts from my experience.

As a manager you will decrease the resistance a lot if you provide the answers to difficult questions in advance. When people face the uncertainty and lack of information they don’t want to enter the “land of changes”. They start screaming, resisting and creating the other problems that result in lower efficiency.  Conflict avoidance never was a good change management strategy in a long-run period. So, my first advice: good PM not just creates a road-map but share it with his/her people.

And my second mentioned above advice is to control the change as much as possible. Be informed immediately when something goes not the way you plan. Get alerts to make fast decisions. And when everything goes good than track the project progress and show it to your people. Why? It will increase the sense  of confidence and decrease the resistance to changes. When people see the progress they are more likely to help this progress as they feel to be the part of it. And this is also very effective way to overcome the resistance.

And how do you help your people not to hate changes?