The elephant in the room. The real reason teams don’t change

You’ve just announced a change you thought your team would welcome. Yet the moment after you got to the crux of how it will affect them a silence descended. Some of your audience caught each other’s gaze as if to confirm your message is indeed a figurative bombshell. Others winced. A few just stared at the floor. They knew something you didn’t, but no one dared say a word. ‘What just happened?’ you privately asked yourself.

Here’s the problem: what stops teams embracing change isn’t fully understood nor discussed. So when initiatives are announced they typically focus on only a small part of the case for working in new ways. Yet their success depends not only on teams’ understanding the need for change but their level of emotional commitment to it as well.