Making “New Year’s” resolutions is a type of change strategy. It is not clear how effective it is, but many of us reportedly have tried it. From time to time I too make various resolutions to change something about myself, my work, and so on. Like others, I have had mixed results. So this year, I’ve decided to take a different approach. As a practitioner of organizational change, it occurred to me that I should apply some of the same discipline I recommend to my clients to my own personal efforts at change.
I have decided that this year I am going to apply three specific change management principles to my own resolutions and see how I do this time.
1) Plan a specific period of time to give dedicated attention to helping the change to “stick.” Over the years I have learned that any new change needs dedicated support and attention over at least the first 6-10 weeks to have a good chance of successful, long-term adoption. This gives enough time for the new practice to become a reliable and standard way of working. Giving dedicated attention for a specified period of time is particularly important in organizations where there is always some new initiative clamoring for attention. Without such committed attention, some practice that is difficult to adopt may simply be made a lower priority and then forgotten as new priorities emerge.
I once worked with an executive coach[i] who advocated something similar for a change in personal practices. In this case, he argued that adopting some new personal habit required at least 30 days of personal attention. After 30 days of more or less successful performance, the new practice would be a fairly natural part of one’s life.
I saw this need for a dedicated focus over time play out for myself some years ago. My dentist had advocated an additional toothbrush and mouth wash routine. I would have to remember to perform this routine first thing each day and this would be a change to my usual morning routine. Adopting this change didn’t always go easily. I tended to forget my new practice on weekends with their different schedule. I also had a couple of business trips that sent me to the airport very early, and so on. After a month, I had only remembered to perform this new practice as intended about 50% of time. I made the decision to give it another 30 days to see if I could make this a more reliable practice. Over this second month, my adoption of this routine increased dramatically. I now remembered this early morning dental routine each day, even if something got in my way. If I hadn’t given the adoption of this practice the additional attention over time, then I doubt that the change would have stuck.
2) Reflect on progress in a timely, productive way. Closely related to the need for devoting attention over time is the need to assess progress on adopting the change. Organizational change is often reviewed on some schedule that is convenient for the organization, e.g., quarterly. Unfortunately, a review on such a schedule may not help the change effort succeed. As I’ve worked with dozens of teams in leading change efforts in different organizations, I have consistently found that any review of progress towards some change is best done in 4-6 week intervals. When a review period is any longer than this, individual commitment and enthusiasm for the change is likely to be lost. What becomes foremost in each person’s mind are the difficulties of implementing change. It is often easier (and certainly relieves some tension) to focus on why the original plan has turned out to be unworkable. If, however, there are regular fact-based reviews of progress, and if these reviews are focused more on how to do better going forward, then the change effort is much more likely to stay on track.
I intend to apply this principle to personal change resolutions to counter the inevitable resistance present in my own little system. After 4-5 weeks, I will review my progress in fulfilling my resolutions. I will try to be honest in my assessment, make modifications if warranted, and generally give myself a good talking to.
3) Learn from the experience of making change. Finally, any reflection on progress should be an opportunity for learning about the process of change. Such learning can improve the success of subsequent efforts. Specifically, I recommend that my organizational clients organize their reviews around answers to three follow-up questions.
- What have we accomplished that we planned to accomplish?
- What didn’t we accomplish that we planned to accomplish?
- What are we learning about leading change from our answers to both of the first two questions?
I’ve written before about how a discussion of these questions supports organizational change (see Three Assumptions… Be Careful We Might Learn from This,), but now I am going to use them in reflecting on my own progress in maintaining my resolutions. Of course the “we” in those three questions now becomes “I.” I wonder what I’ll discover.
January 1 is fast approaching. I will be making my resolutions and in time I’ll reflect on this year’s success in keeping them. In some future post, I may share what those resolutions were and how I did. Meanwhile, I wish you a successful 2012 full of positive, successful change.
[i] Rod Napier
