Can people change? The simple answer is “No”. People do NOT change who they are at their core. People can adapt to their current circumstances, but they do not change. This has significant implications for managers going through large organizational change initiatives.
Background
Human beings’ core values and beliefs are set in their early to late teens when they are developing into adults. During this point in a person’s life, they are “emerging adults” and take in stimuli from their surroundings that form who they are at their core and how they interact with others for the rest of their lives.
This translates into how a person interacts with their peers and their environment. For example, if a teen comes from a family that has problems with communicating their feelings to each other, the teen’s communication skills will suffer. The teen will have problems openly communicating their feelings with loved ones, friends, teachers, etc. The teen will carry this problem on into adulthood and their friendships, relationships, and even work will suffer from poor communication.
Change versus Adapt
Have you worked with someone who is considered “difficult” by other colleagues? Have you tried to help that person change into someone who is easier to work with and failed? Trying to change a person’s core values and beliefs is a losing battle that managers fight every day. Why? Because people do not change. At best, a person can “adapt” based on their environment and motivation.
Take the example above of the person with poor communication issues. We have all worked with someone who has trouble communicating effectively with others. At some point early in this person’s career, they were identified as someone not fit to be in a client facing role or does not interact well with large teams. In some cases, given the right motivation, the person may interact with a team when their specific skills are required, but leading a team is not in the cards for this person. They adapt to find a job or work environment that will fit their capabilities.
Working with Difficult People
Managers who are leading change in their organizations must shift their focus from changing peoples’ minds about the organizational change to ensuring that employees resistant to change can adapt to the change successfully. Change managers must be able to identify the employees who are resistant to the organizational change and then quickly assess whether the employees can adapt or not. Failure to make this assessment can potentially put the success of the organizational change in jeopardy.
Change managers should not waste time attempting to change an employee who is steadfast in resisting an organizational change initiative. Focusing attention on a small group of resistors over a larger group could, again, jeopardize the success of the organizational change initiative. Once identified, the employees who can not adapt to the change should be “reassigned” to a new position outside of the organization.