Handling a Culture Clash in Your Organization
How to back off from a disruption to incremental change
The 30-minute meeting turned into a 90-minute meeting. You and sales can't agree on the value proposition of your product. This disconnect has been under discussion for several weeks. Your launch window for the updated value proposition is about to close.
Should you keep pushing for this change?
As you reflect on the past few weeks, you notice some common themes:
Multiple people that you trust resist the change
Limited support from stakeholders
Missed milestones in preparing for the upcoming launch
Business is declining
Co-workers are uncomfortable with the change
Relationships are strained
These are signs that the pace of change is too fast. It is time to let the culture catch up and be ready to assimilate the change.
Now that you are on the brink of pushing too hard, what can you do to recover and make incremental progress?
Re-evaluate the Change Timeline
Break the change into smaller parts.Â
Propose a new plan to stakeholders and the product team based on their feedback.Â
Slow the pace of change to add small incremental steps over a longer timeframe.
Prioritize for business improvement before pushing your change.
Start with a Pilot Project
Show the benefit of a small change with a pilot project.Â
Try the change with a limited scope in parallel.Â
Evaluate the benefits.Â
Check if there is interest in expanding the pilot to additional projects.
Provide Training on the Incremental Change
Give the organization a chance to absorb the change by offering training and resources.Â
Provide resources to your internal team to check if the organization is ready for the change.Â
Wait to provide training after the organization is ready.
Involve the Product Team in the Incremental Change
Communicate about the incremental change to your stakeholders and product team.Â
Your product team has the best understanding of the change and gets the most benefit from the change.
Be sure your product team agrees with new incremental steps.Â
Document the metrics and monitor the metrics on the incremental changes.
Conclusion - Balance Pushing for Change with Incremental Progress
If you keep getting blocked from an important product change, your organization's culture is telling you something. Give yourself time to understand better the values and behaviors shaping your organization.
Re-evaluate your change, try out a small part of the change, and work with your product team on the incremental change.
Very interesting, Amy. When I wrote about change (https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/how-to-approach-change-the-big-cut), I distinguished between a soft and a hard transition. But the soft transition is much more nuanced, as you wrote here.