Understanding how people respond to change

We’ve all heard that ‘change is the one constant’, and it’s not wrong! We’re now working in a ‘change as usual’ environment, and no organisation is immune.

The scale and pace of change has grown rapidly in our workplaces. In 2016, the average employee experienced only two planned enterprise changes (projects like digital transformations, restructures, and so on). That number had increased exponentially to 10 planned changes a year by 2022 (source: HBR). 

This means a significant, increasing demand for communication specialists who are skilled in change communication, to help organisations navigate the ever-changing business environments.

At the heart of great change communication is a deep understanding of human behaviour, and knowing how people are likely to respond to change. Once we know that, we can start to plan our communication to be more effective, and provide great coaching to leaders.

In our experience, there’s two key elements that determine how a person responds to change: a person’s level of risk aversion, and how long a person takes to process information and make a decision.

When we put those two elements together, we get four possible responses. It’s worth noting a couple of things here:

• You can absolutely move between these responses, depending on the context.

• You can be at different extremes of each, or smack-bang in the middle.
  

So what are they? Introducing our change personas:

Happy Helens

Happy Helens are the people on the team who LOVE change. They thrive in a changing environment, and get their kicks out of being early adopters. They can be great change champions, and they’re also excellent people to have in pilot groups for user experience testing.

Cautious Cals

Cautious Cals are our ‘cautious optimists’. Typically speaking, they see the benefits of change, but they won’t jump in right away. They will have questions they need answered to feel more confident and comfortable. But they’re generally positive, and can be a good influence on others in the team.

Nope Nellys

Nope Nellys’ default response to change is ‘no’! They are highly risk averse and quick to jump to a decision. You might hear them say something like, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’. But they can be a good ‘devil’s advocate’, and raise issues others haven’t thought about.

Fence-sitting Freds

Our Freds are often slower to make a decision. They’re often suspicious about change, and not willing to share their opinions until they see how it all pans out. It means they will let others change first, and may spend time finding a workaround or another option. But, like Nellys, Freds can be great with challenging our assumptions.

There are many ways you can tailor your communication to meet the needs of each of these four personality types. If you’d like some tips - and want to find out where you sit - take our short Change Personality Type quiz here.

Would you like to learn more about Change Communication?

These personality types are also explained in more detail, along with loads of communication tips, in Mel’s new book, which will be released in early 2024. Pop your name down on the list to be notified when pre-sales and special offers open! Click here.