John J. Diamond

Organizational change is hard. For teams affected by change, disruptions to their work loom large while the benefits of change tend to appear small and distant. This frequently manifests as an “enthusiasm gap” between the people proposing a change and those who will be affected by it. What looks like a clear win-win to some appears dubious at best to others.

That’s why one of the best ways to drive change is to start by offering teams something for “free” – something that doesn’t add to their work or require them to adopt new workflows. Change without disruption comes with few downsides, making it easier for people to appreciate its benefits. This kind of change isn’t compulsory, which also gives people more opportunity to become supporters or even advocates for it – much more so than if the change were imposed upon them.

What kinds of change initiatives offer something for free? One option is providing greater access to information. This could be more information about the activity of other teams around the organization – projects they’re working on, parties they’re working with, or initiatives they’re considering. Or it could be more visibility into the status of cross-departmental workflows, such as requests that require approval from multiple departments. A second option is making processes easier to navigate. This could take the form of training or guidance resources, or it could be modifications to the processes themselves – dropping requirements or streamlining intermediate steps. A third option is offering incentives to teams for successful completion of tasks, milestones, or projects.

Granted, these examples aren’t necessarily “free” for everyone. For example, providing access to information requires that the owners of the information are willing to share it. Similarly, it takes work to develop new training or guidance resources. But it usually isn’t hard to find a group of people who are ready to initiate change. That could be a department that would like to raise the visibility of their work, a group who is repeatedly called upon to explain how their processes work, or a team who is frustrated with cross-departmental workflows that stall out. Identifying these groups and figuring out how to build on the change they’re willing to initiate is key.

Driving organizational change in this way is an iterative process. It starts with teams who are motivated to take on the extra work needed for change; it grows by demonstrating to other teams that change can provide benefits with minimal disruption to their work. As more people experience the benefits of change, they become open to further changes – even changes that come with some degree of disruption. Over time, this creates new possibilities for the organization. The change “enthusiasm gap” narrows, the benefits of change become more visible and accessible, and the organization becomes ready for larger changes.

Every organization has longstanding problems that defy easy fixes. Missed connections that lead to work being duplicated. Two departments that maintain overlapping systems, each claiming ownership of the same key information. Cross-departmental processes with no clear owner, where work quietly stalls at a hand-off.

Problems like these may have already absorbed change efforts that produced a period of improvement that eroded once attention moved elsewhere. The problems don’t persist because no one has tried to address them. They persist because they are not susceptible to direct intervention. Structural and cultural factors, such as the way different teams define success, lead people to reject proposed changes. What’s worse, repeated attempts to solve these problems directly can entrench them more deeply, fostering an “us vs. them” mentality, breeding cynicism, and creating preemptive resistance to later change initiatives.

Instead of addressing these problems head-on, pursue lower-stakes initiatives to reshape the environment. If two departments claim ownership of the organization’s system of record, don’t arbitrate the claim – build integrations with other systems that make the dispute irrelevant. If a cross-departmental workflow keeps failing for lack of ownership, create infrastructure that makes the workflow easier to accomplish or incentives that make it more desirable to own.

Tackling longstanding problems in this way takes time. But it is a more reliable way to drive organizational change than rerunning initiatives that teams have already rejected. Small wins add up, building interdependence and trust across organizational fault lines. Over time, this shifts how groups perceive their incentives, obligations, and ability to drive the organization’s success. Accumulate enough of these wins, and the resolution to the original problem stops being a source of conflict. Instead, it becomes a natural next step that the organization is ready to take.