Give Me Your Rock Throwers

Have you ever worked for months, maybe even years, on implementing a major change, only to have it derailed at the last minute due to a road block you didn’t see coming?

Have you ever been in a meeting where an imminent change is being communicated and someone raises an objection that no one on the team had thought of, and it’s an objection that has to be addressed in order for the change to proceed?

It’s like a rock that comes out of nowhere and clocks you in the back of the head, isn’t it?

Now, can you see the face of the person who threw that rock? It’s usually the person that no one wants to talk to about change, the person where everybody else in the room cringes as soon as his or her hand goes up. Every organization has them. Can you picture who I’m talking about?

That’s the person I want to talk to first.

A lot of change management courses will tell you that a successful change management approach includes seeking out the early adopters, and that can work. But do you know what works every single time? Seeking out your known rock throwers and getting THEM on board.

In an ideal world, you would have time to go out and talk to each person who will be affected by your project one-by-one, but the reality is that is rarely possible. In order to be efficient with the time you do have, you need to identify those people that, when THEY adopt the change, bring ten or twenty or even a hundred other people with them. That’s where your rock throwers come in.

Picture the same meeting where your team is communicating a change and, instead of trying to pretend you don’t see John’s hand go up, you actually call on John and ask him to share his thoughts. He says he thinks this is a great idea and even explains why he is supportive, maybe even excited.

Most, if not all, of the rest of the people in the room will think something like, “Well, if John has had a chance to ask all of HIS questions and raise all of his objections and concerns and risks and issues and HE’S satisfied with the answers, then I guess this is going to be good.”

Another benefit is that, as much as your rock throwers can be categorized as a pain, their concerns are very often legitimate. By engaging them early and actually encouraging them to think of everything that could possibly go wrong on the path to implementing this change, you get a very valuable ally in not only identifying risk early, but often coming up with the solution or mitigation plan for the risk they’ve just identified. It’s a win-win, and one you can’t afford to waste.