Our people tell us they love the idea. They say, “Oh, that’s great.” They don’t mean it.

I’m talking about their reaction when we foist a change on them.

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Change is constant. The world’s moving fast. We need to change to meet customer demands, to deal with all kinds of forces impacting our business, to address technology transformations, to tackle changing workforce needs.

We can address it two ways:

We can do like we do with every other decision we make: Get into a room with fellow leaders—fellow problem solvers who came up learning that solving problems is the key to success—and solve the problem for everyone.

When we do this, our people are taken aback by how naïve our ideas are; they know—better than we do—how things really work. Also, the “solution” wasn’t their idea…they had no say in it…and we’re turning their world upside down. They’re rolling their eyes or seething or both.

But we can’t see it. They’re in survival mode. So they give us a smile and a big thumbs up. And we think our people just love our solution. Unfortunately, their lack of support comes through in a lack of engagement—with the change, and possibly with their jobs overall. Months later we wonder why the change hasn’t taken. “What’s wrong with our people?” we ask.

OR, we can take the time to include them, get their ideas, learn how the business actually works, help them understand the reason for the change, develop better two-way dialog along the way, work some muscles we haven’t used in a while given our standard way of solving problems (without our people…which is usually OK in non-change cases). When we do it right, we develop a much more realistic solution with an army much more likely to march with us toward the change.

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So beware the comfort we get with the thumbs up from our people. It’s likely false comfort.

Let me know what you think. I look forward to being in touch.

Al Comeaux