Why do people resist change? Leadership Survey Findings (1072 managers, 510 CEOs, 80 countries)

Here’s the first findings from research conducted jointly with New Catalyst.(http://changeisessential.com)

Click Video link to view Nick Anderson position the upcoming publication of the full research report – Stategies for Managing Change and Winning in Todays Competitive Environment

Since change management came into fashion, a litany of failure has left its mark and our respondent’s echo what many have gone through in the last 8 years. It seems through their eyes, resistance has to be viewed as a “brown field” site. Gone is the naiveté of “a job for life” and an enduring contract between leaders and other stakeholders. Now, change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, etc. For these respondents, they paint a picture of failed change, broken trust, fractured communication and poor leadership. We summarize their comments into the following:

• Cultural Toxicity of Failed Change
• “If people don’t trust you, what change do you stand?”
• “People can’t be bothered”
• “What’s in it for me?”
•  “Not knowing the purpose of it all” – a litany of communication failure
• Poor Leadership embeds and accelerates resistance

Key Account Management Series: How do you really improve sales mastery to win more deals?

Watch the video of this blog

Over the last 25 years, sales executives have become jaded about sales training’s contribution to the bottom line. For many, memories of being pulled from the field for some grizzly sales training remain.  Today there are hundreds such programs . . . from being customer value centered, to chasing foxes (tiring at best), to filling shark charts and don’t forget your green sheets!

Yes, these approaches point the way, but too many sales managers don’t realize how ingrained their salespeople’s habits really are. Even if they manage to get them to complete their “forms” they lack the awareness of when they are not in sync with different and changing customer needs. This is really prevalent in those sales people whose past success was in products that sold themselves. They got mentally lazy differentiating on value or service. For example, the telecommunications and IT markets in the early 2000s. Consequently, many are unaware changes before it’s too late, like: