Are you a leader who wants to introduce change into your group, but are confronted with colleagues who seem unable to change? In recent months I’ve had conversations with business leaders whose sincere efforts to make their organizational cultures more innovation-friendly were met with indifference or resistance. While advising one leader on dealing with such a situation, I created a matrix to explain this. Let me share this tool with you to help you cope with people-related difficulties when trying to implement a change.

Draw the Change-Capabilities Matrix

Get a piece of paper and draw a matrix with four quadrants. Label the horizontal axis “Change readiness” with “Not ready” on the left and “Ready” on the right, and the vertical axis “Capabilities,” with “High” by the upper box and “Low” by the lower. The result is the Thinkergy Change-Capabilities Matrix:

• The top right quadrant will contain highly capable people who eagerly embrace change. These change drivers will help you implement change in your organization.

• The bottom right quadrant is for those with limited knowledge, skills and experience, but who are open to change. “Good will, poor skill” is a good way to describe them.

• The bottom left quadrant contains those who have low capabilities and are unwilling to change. They may be nice people, but they are hopeless cases when it comes to the challenges of the modern business environment.

• Finally, in the top left quadrant are those with considerable knowledge and skills who are unwilling to depart from “the way we do things around here.” These people are change saboteurs and doubters & doomsayers. Change saboteurs are people who will actively undermine change, because they follow a personal agenda incompatible with that change. On the other hand, doubters and doomsayers are insecure and full of fear, uncertainty, and doubt; they worry that the proposed change will harm the organization and — more importantly — themselves.

Add data to the Change-Capabilities Matrix

Now that you’ve constructed your change-capabilities matrix and understood its logic, think about how it applies to your organization:

• In which quadrant would each of your senior executives be located?

• Which middle managers are change drivers? “Good will, poor skill”? Hopeless cases? Change saboteurs and doubters & doomsayers?

• What other employees play an important role in your desired change? How do you classify each of them?

As you write names into your matrix, it becomes alive, with faces attached to each of the five profiles. Are you surprised how many middle managers and executives end up as change saboteurs or doubters & doomsayers?

Acting on the Change-Capabilities Matrix

How best to deal with each of these types? Here is what I would do:

• Empower and — sooner, rather than later — promote your change drivers to roles and positions from which they can do what they’re suited for — drive change. Give them responsibilities over projects related to your desired change. Most importantly, ensure that these key allies of yours are protected from change saboteurs.

• Invest in developing your “good will, poor skill” employees through training, coaching or mentoring, so they can become change drivers. If you want to boost the innovation capabilities of your firm as a whole, send people from the right side of the matrix to creativity and innovation training. Beware of wasting your budget training those on the left side of your matrix.

• Although it may be difficult, the best thing for everyone is to say “thank you and farewell” to all your hopeless cases. Pay what is needed for a dignified exit.

• You must actively confront both change saboteurs and doubters & doomsayers. Make it clear that the changes will happen with or without them, and that their choice is to either help or leave. Many doubters & doomsayers will eventually support the changes once you provide enough external motivation. Alternating between carrot and stick is usually effective. Change saboteurs, on the other hand, are unlikely to depart from their own agenda, as doing so would constitute a loss of power, influence, face, or money. Your best bet is to closely monitor them so that when they work against the best interests of your group you will be able to use that to force them out.

Clearly, change doesn’t come easy to most people. As a person leading a change endeavor, consider following this approach; change may come more easily, and produce better results, than you think is possible today.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2011. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 28 April 2011.