We’ve all heard the adage, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” So what in the world does that have to do with change management?
What’s interesting to me is that we spend an enormous amount of focus, time and energy on teaching the horse to drink while neglecting the other parts. I usually write about my hot buttons, and here you go!
In the last month, I’ve come across at least three (and I stopped counting!) potential clients asking what can Perficient do to deliver training for a new system implementation. No mention of communications, stakeholder management, or even how to drive buy-in (we start that process with our “Case for Change” activity). The presumption is that if we train, end users will know how to use the new tool (true) and they’ll actually do it (false!).
Look at it this way, going back to our horse. What if you teach the horse to drink, but he’s two miles from the nearest stream? What good does that do you? Not much! If you want the horse to actually drink, you have to get him to the stream. It will likely take buy-in if you don’t want to drag him the whole way, management along the way (can you keep him away from the apple tree?), and persistence – two miles can be a long way for a thirsty horse. You’ll do this by talking to him, encouraging him, and reinforcing what’s at the end of the journey. Those are all change management tactics!
So why in the “real world” do we expect training in itself to be sufficient? Why don’t we spend the effort on generating buy-in from our stakeholders and users? Why do we assume all stakeholders are the same and will react the same way? Why don’t we encourage our users with regular communications, letting them know where on the journey we are and giving them the confidence that we’re right on track to get to the finish line.
Is it money? Is it capability? Is it time? I suspect that it’s a combination of all three of those. However, training without the context of a solid change management plan is like teaching a horse to drink miles from the oasis. It is a wasted effort.
The next time you take on any significant initiative, I challenge you to think about this example, and ask yourself, “can you lead a horse to water?”