Okay, so now comes the fun part. How do we take your commitment to transformational change and make it land within our organizational terrain? My suggestion is to think in threes. Number one, we must agree, number two we must discern, and number three we must decide. So number one we must agree that change is tough. It's tough on us as individuals. It's certainly tough on organizations specially as we're talking about transformational change. And it's certainly tough on organizational actors. I would even go as far as to say, that some of the time, perhaps the most of the time, it's not that people resist change. People resist being changed or resist being forced to change. And this is where an effective and impactful change agent comes in. We must agree that this stuff is tough. And I want you to spend a little bit of time thinking through how you are going to prepare for this tough work. Think about situations, where you have been a little bit unsure of yourself or you had some second thoughts about your capabilities. Where you have taken on task and may have seemed insurmountable but you you began to actually do this in earnest. And to figure out some strategies that work for you. Recognize that stuff for those working with you? And how do you not take feedback on the change initiative as being personal? And Lastly, how do you remain open to listening actively even when people are resisting the idea of change, of adding this lens to the analysis? Let's agree that it's tough. But let's also agree it's important to do. Secondly, would we have to do is we actually have to discern, we have to discern what kind of change we're about to enable. My colleague and friend, Professor Tiziana Casciaro at the Rotman School and her colleague and friend Professor Julie Battilana at the Harvard Business School in the Kennedy School. Speak about this and they make the connection between leading change and the kind of network you have. So what they do first is they tell us the distinction between kind of deeply disruptive change versus just the kind of mild tweaky kind of change. And their argument is this when you're actually dealing with massive disruption to how the organization operates. You need to have people that are change agents that are able to bridge across networks, so these are people who have divergent networks because the work is kind of divergent, right? You're doing something that's a radical departure from what you're used to doing. If your organization is on the other side where the work around equity, diversity, inclusion, sustainability is well along its way. And the gender analytics work is just going to be another minor tweak, then what you need are individuals who are going to not necessarily bridge divergent networks, but in fact have cohesive networks. So people who have strong networks amongst other people that just kind of move the work along. And this, I believe, is really a subtle but deep insight that I want you to carry with you. Do an assessment along where your organization ends, and how the gender analytics work fits into this. Is it a divergent work, look for people who can be a Co chair or something like that with you, in changing the conversation. By bringing along people who have very different kind of networks. If this is really a little bit of a nudge, moving you in the right direction but just a little bit further along, you want to have your cohesive networks in place, and that's where the work happens. Good luck with that. Thirdly, what must do is we must decide, okay? So what must be decide? Well, we've got to decide where people sit on a continuum. Within your organization, so you have people that are endorsers who are all for the change. On the other extreme, you have resistors. People who are actively resisting this change. An in between you have fence sitters. Okay, so what do we do? How do we kind of understand even if we identify people that are endorsers? So let's start with endorsers. The research shows that endorsers, you don't have to spend a lot of time with them there on side, there with you and irrespective of what kind of change you're dealing with. Spending a lot of time with them is not going to give you a lot of result. Now, let's talk about change that is divergent, change that is transformative, change that is a radical departure from the norm within your organization. For that Professors Casciaro and Battilana tell us that which you have to do is you have to focus on the fence sitters. All right, people that are on the fence, they can go one way or the other. Listen carefully to them, actively to them, and engage them in conversation. Make them feel heard and have conversations in which you were able to share perspective non defensively. So that's for divergent change, radical change and their research also shows that spending a lot of time on resistors doesn't really do much. Okay, what happens in the case of non divergent change? So it's kind of a bit of a tweak from what kind of happening in the organization, there for sure still fence sitters matter. But they also say that it's important for you to make some effort to actually engage resistors. And one of their insights that I think, that I love actually, is that sometimes in those kind of situations, resistors can be swayed to agree with and to give you buy in. On the basis of their own sense of social connection to the organization or to yourself. So back to basics, we must decide what are we doing with the endorsers, there on your side already, leave them alone. Then think about what kind of change your in, if it's divergent change, focus solely on the fence sitters because it's a radical departure. The critics are way too loud and way too different. But if in fact it's non divergent change focus on the fence sitters and also on those that aren't dissenters. I hope this is helpful to you as you plot out your strategy in terms of how you make sense as a change agent. In recognizing the change is tough. Discerning what kind of change are leading and deciding how are you going to deal with the various kinds of colleagues and organizational actors that you have that you have to work with. Best of luck.
