• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Enclaria: Influence Change at Work

Equipping individuals and teams to influence organizational change

  • Change Academy
  • Toolkit
  • Free Influence Course
  • Change Academy
  • Toolkit
  • Free Influence Course

What Does It Really Mean to Be Change-Ready?

A fellow change practitioner recently shared the story of a friend who is a health care consultant. On a recent project, the consultant was assisting a hospital with the reconfiguration of nurses’ workstations.

If you’ve been in the corporate world any length of time, you have probably been the recipient (victim?) of a workstation reconfiguration. People move offices, cubicle walls are moved, office equipment is relocated. Typically, when this happens, the assumption is that you’ll putter around for a few weeks, finding your new path to the conference rooms and the printer, turning the wrong way at first, but fixing it once you realize it. Eventually, you’ll get used to the new setup and your routine will become automatic.

offices

When nurses hear the alarm for a “code blue,” meaning someone is in cardiopulmonary arrest, they have to get to the patient’s room as quickly as possible with the life-saving equipment. A split-second delay literally is the difference between life and death. In this situation, if a change in workstation means taking a step in the wrong direction before your brain realizes it and corrects you, it matters.

It wouldn’t be enough to change the nurses’ workstations, show them where the crash cart is, and expect they would overcome the learning curve eventually. People’s lives were at stake.

To be truly ready for this change, the nurses’ new routine had to already be automatic before the change happened. How did the consultant with the hospital accomplish this?

In a separate building, they created a simulated environment with the precise new layout, and gave the nurses the opportunity to practice the code blue routine over and over until it was ingrained. Most organizations would not go to this length for a seemingly trivial change. But in this case it mattered that the nurses not miss a beat once the real workstation changed.

Even though for the rest of us, our changes may not be life-and-death scenarios, from this example, we can take away some questions to ask ourselves:

  • What level of change readiness matters?
  • When you flip the switch of change, what do you expect people to be able to do reliably?
  • What is the implication if they aren’t fully ready (to them, to the organization, to customers)?
  • How can you prepare them to fulfill that level of readiness?

These are all questions we need to ask ourselves as change practitioners to ensure people are truly ready for change.

Is your organization ready for change? Find out with this free Change Readiness Assessment.

 

Share
Previous Post: « The Pitfalls of Making Change Mandatory – and What to Do Instead
Next Post: Eight Elements of Change Ability »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

free five drivers of change video course Get the Free Course

Upcoming Events

  1. Fundamentals of Influencing Change at Work | Online Course

    January 21, 2021 @ 1:00 pm EST - April 1, 2021 @ 3:00 pm EDT

View All Events

** Change Management Course **

Fundamentals of Influencing Change at Work - Online

eventbanner

January 21 - April 1, 2021
Register Now

On-Demand Video Course

Unlock Resistance to Change

Unlock Resistance to Change Course

Spark more moments when people stop resisting and embrace change.

Take the Class

Change Toolkit

toolkit image Get the Toolkit

Connect

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Resistance, Leadership, and Change
  • Two Types of Behavior to Influence for Change to Happen
  • Implementing Change Until Things “Get Back to Normal”
  • Why Leaders Mess Up When Communicating Change
  • The One Thing That Defines a Culture of Change
Tweets by @heatherstagl

Footer

Let’s Connect!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search this Site

Log In

Upcoming Events

  1. Fundamentals of Influencing Change at Work | Online Course

    January 21, 2021 @ 1:00 pm EST - April 1, 2021 @ 3:00 pm EDT

View All Events

Navigation

Contact
About Enclaria
Blog
Podcast

Copyright © 2020 Enclaria: Influence Change at Work · All Rights Reserved