Organizational change and the unconscious. How can organizational change have higher success rates? (1/2)
Organizations are composed of individuals.
Individuals have typically a natural aversion to change.
Organizational change is typically top down / imposed with logical and rational approaches, deciding at the top who will be the new “owner” of such a department/business unit/team, and then drawing the boxes where the rest of the people will be included.
Who asks / makes sure that the individuals at the middle and bottom want to do and embrace change?
Furthermore, as change only occurs first at an individual level, if each one of those individuals affected by change will not change themselves, organizational change is much more likely to not succeed at the level that is expected.
Individuals only change if they work on themselves to align with the new reality that the organization wants to have.
Individual change is driven mostly by changes of beliefs, perceptions and understandings that reside at a subconscious level — 95% of what happens to us is either automatic (breathing, blood circulation, digestion, etc.), on the result of automated behaviours, reactions to situations and patterns (habits).
Habits result from deeply embedded and strong synaptic connections in a person’s brain.
Change is doing things differently, i.e., creating new habits.
To create new habits are needed new synaptic connections (circuits) in the brain.
Therefore, organizational change will have much more possibilities to succeed if the people that compose the organization create new brain circuits, at an individual level, aligned with the new behaviours that the organization wants.
To create new circuits in their brains, people need to learn the new behaviours, unlearn the existing behaviours (minimize the usage of the circuits that are supporting current behaviours), and to consolidate the new learning.
Even before starting the learn, unlearn and consolidation process, people will be more apt to change if they already work on their subconscious — this will make it easier for them to align to the future mode of doing things.
Working on the subconscious is only possible when people are aware at a conscious level of the subconscious processes that drive the behaviours, the way the things they do, and the reactions they have in certain situations.
In summary, to change is to create a new future, a new way of doing things,
A new way of doing things requires new behaviours done consistently.
New behaviours done consistently become habits.
Habits are supported by new synaptic connections (circuits).
The process of forming habits is to focus on having consistent repetition of the processes that want to be seen in the future.
By default, without consistent insistence on the new behaviours, people will continue doing the current way of working, as their brain circuits are very strong, the result of years of usage (neurons that fire together wire together). These brain circuits support behaviours, beliefs, patterns, and ways of interpreting reality that are stored at a subconscious level.
If organizations want their change initiatives to have more probabilities of success, they need to support individual change at the subconscious level — the basis of the start and the consolidation of change.
What can organizations do to support change for individuals at the subconscious level?
Read my article next week to know practical ways organizations can use to facilitate this process.
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