Target Your Actions, Transform Your Business
John Boochever
Executive Director, Clarendon Partners
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Introduction
This is the second article in a three-part series making the argument for a more rigorous, in fact a scientific-based approach, to change in business transformation. Whether motivated by external market conditions and business strategy, regulatory developments and directives, or technology modernization, change is ubiquitous – and the gating factor is employees’ willingness and readiness to adopt it into their working lives. Other sectors, such as healthcare, and facets of business, such as quality control, have made adoption – and the factors that lead up to it – mission-critical, backed up by evidence-based operations and behavioral science. Why not the same for business and technology change?
Proposition 2: The Case for Implementation Science for Business?
As consultants specializing in digital transformation, it always surprises us how little weight senior business leaders give to the ultimate barometer of any change effort: have employees adopted it into their day-to-day work?
The reasons for this are understandable. It’s hard to predict take-up and the timing of when benefits will be realized, especially from technology transformation. It’s much easier to measure software deliveries and installation dates. Also, implementing software and meeting release dates is what vendors are measured and ultimately remunerated on. Unfortunately, as a result, the default position often boils down to “let’s put it out there and see what happens,” with predictable results.
Why? Because actual users’ behavior is tricky, variable, and… human. People like routine and would prefer to keep doing what they’re already good at, forever. And yet there is a body of empirical evidence, proven tools and tactics, and established industry standards and practices aimed at dramatically increasing the odds of successful change – by focusing specifically on end-user behaviors. In the healthcare profession, this discipline is known as ‘Implementation Science,’ formal methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practice and research into everyday use1. Our contention is that business would benefit from something analogous, with the weight of behavioral science behind it, call it ‘Adoption Science.’
We would not be starting from scratch in the business context of course; the business world could borrow and work with interventions that are well known to change behaviors2, which naturally would include adapting to new technology or ways of working. Figure 1 presents our ‘Adoption Wheel of Change’ illustrating the proven actions businesses can take to influence behavior, including technology adoption, and the primary mechanisms – or management levers – that underpin them.
Table 1 provides definitions for these actions (aka interventions) along with some representative examples, and their corresponding management levers.
Whereas the science of changing behaviors is well-established from other fields, the application of the strategies and techniques for transformational change is a real art in the business world, and one that greatly benefits from skilled practitioners. That’s where dedicated roles, like change champions and measurement specialists, and forums, like change management offices and stakeholder councils, come into play. Like any science, what works and what doesn’t need to be built up over time, along with the skills specific to that organization’s living laboratory.
Business Transformation at Clarendon Partners
Clarendon Partners brings a ‘front-to-back’ operations approach to help organizations scale efficiently, reduce risk, manage change, and improve strategic results through digital and operating model transformation.
Our people-centric services deepen our transformation offering by focusing on employee behaviors, specifically how to structure and manage business operations and IT modernization to maximize take-up and adoption. We do this using proven change techniques, such as ‘voice of the customer,’ journey- or value-mapping, and human-centered design.
In transformations driven by regulatory reform and changes to risk culture (e.g., ESG, Cyber, FHFA, OCC), Clarendon Partners helps promote adoption, increase compliance, and avoid regulatory rework through awareness campaigns, learning and development, and culture assessments.
Contact us at evolve@clarendonptrs.com to discuss how we can help.
