Attitudes : Change Management

Mr. Kolah, who is working as a Finance Manager, has taken initiative to bring change through innovation in his organisation. Although his bosses have approved the project to be taken up which is real beneficial for the organization, their attitude is not conductive for the proposed project and change management. They instructed him to hire a renowned consulting company whereas Mr. Kolah thinks that the new consulting projects need more energetic, entrepreneurial and innovative consultants. He has tried hard to convince them but failed to change their attitudes.

Attitudes are a collection of value and beliefs around certain subject. Most people try to change other person's attitude without any success. Attitude cannot be changed without changing incorrect values and beliefs first. Unfortunately, we normally have little success in changing attitude. Telling some one to change his attitude never works. Never. Let us consider this specific values and how beliefs create an attitude.

The bosses of Mr. Kolah are biased towards new consulting company as an agent to innovation and change management. Such a resistance is an attitude.

Value: Security and Ego

Belief A: When consultants of know brand are around, I am secured.
Belief B: Young consultants have no knowledge of business.
Belief C: People other than big consulting are not trust worthy and lack infrastructure.
Belief D: How young people are supposed to teach us on how to do business?

Attitude: People of a new consulting company might be OK, but they will not add value as I am not comfortable hiring them.

Solution is to target all incorrect beliefs first while dealing with attitude. Beliefs are sometime build on wrong values, premises and understanding. This is very true also with more experienced higher level management people.

In today's time when information and knowledge is growing at an incredible speed, the gray hair and experience might not be the major drivers for success and innovation. You need to pump in new blood in the process and increase the velocity to escape the gravity of orthodox thinking. Incorrect reasoning, attitude and state of mind of a person should not be a barrier for successful creation of better organizations of the coming times.