Six Sigma helps improve processes by implementing positive change. However, bringing needed change to a process is only half the battle. Teams must also protect and promote change from the forces that will inevitably oppose it.
Your Six Sigma project brings wonderful improvements that will save money and delight customers, so why would anyone oppose it? As strange as it may sound, any type of change, even the beneficial change that your project brings, will face resistance.
Savvy project teams have learned that ignoring, resenting and fighting opposition to the changes their projects bring are less productive than preparing for the opposition and addressing it directly.
Force Field Analysis Helps Anticipate Resistance to Change
Force Field Analysis shows teams both the pros (enabling forces) and cons (resisting forces) that change can bring, and gives them a better understanding of who is likely to oppose change and why.
A real-world example of Force Field Analysis in action might be evaluating the decision to purchase new equipment. Resisting forces are: employees’ fear of new technology, the cost of the equipment and disruption of production. Enabling forces are: shorter cycle time, lower production cost and higher productivity.
Force Field Analysis tells the project team where to focus its efforts.
Kurt Lewin, the father of Force Field Analysis, taught that when resisting forces and enabling forces are equal, change won’t happen. The easiest way to drive change, according to Lewin, is to reduce the strength of the resisting forces.
In the example of buying new equipment, the project team can help promote the change that it seeks by decreasing resistance. If the team can find ways to reduce the cost of the new equipment or reassure employees by training them well in operating the new equipment, they can reduce resistance to change.
Follow a ‘Checklist for Change’
Project teams can make change a permanent part of business operations by taking the following actions.
- Generate excitement – Excitement is not just for football games. The initial enthusiasm for change can be used to create a climate that helps change last. The project team can sustain excitement for change by connecting it to the benefits of the new process.
- Create early successes – Designing a project plan that helps the team make easy progress in the beginning creates the perception that the project has momentum and helps the change last.
- Obtain leadership support – Successful and enduring change calls for more than good feelings, it requires the power and prestige conferred by the endorsement of upper management. Top leadership can help sustain change by giving its blessing.
- Integration – The changes resulting from a new process are more likely to last when the new process works well with existing processes.
- Resources – New processes sometimes need healthy doses of time and money to become operational. Giving project teams adequate resources can help change thrive.
- Recording process knowledge – Process documentation helps project teams preserve and pass along their hard-won knowledge about making the process work.
Change is an unnatural act, and many will oppose it even when it’s in the organization’s best interest. However, using tools like Force Field Analysis and a Checklist for Change can help changes take hold and become a permanent part of business operations.
