Change is hard. It doesn’t have to be.

Co-authored with Robert Gruman, PwC Principal in People & Organization

So you’re rolling out a pricey new enterprise software or a big initiative that you need, oh, everyone to get on board with. Pronto. 

What do you do next? Gather your core team to plot out the change process? Plan out dozens (and dozens) of emails and other communications for employees. Require classroom sessions with trainers who could lose the room or who might not know your business as well as your people do--rendering at least some of their lessons meaningless for your staff? Send more emails, tout the benefits of the best thing since sliced bread as you roll out a program?

And then sit back and wait. And perhaps silently worry. I’ve been there. You’re making a big company-wide commitment, spending a fortune and doing all you can to make it work. And then you find your people aren’t as enthusiastic or committed. They’re not making full use of this grand new activation. I’ve seen it enough that even after we’ve gotten it right on something, I worry about the next thing. Will my team believe in it like I do? Is there a better way to bridge the gaps in what they know and what we need them to know? Will this all really pay off fast enough? 

It’s no wonder: 80% of executives say their biggest challenge when it comes to transformations is getting people to actually use new software, according to a Merkle Group study. And 70% of adoptions fail due to users’ failure to adapt and change their behaviors to get the most out of the initiatives.

It’s so hard to get to adoption--and true return on investment--on the most important initiatives because the standard way of achieving it doesn’t take into consideration what people really need. We often fail to give people the tools to do what they need to do, what they want to do and what they could do if properly motivated and equipped.

At the root of the problem: traditional change and adoption separates the way we learn and the way we actually do things in our jobs. To solve the problem, companies have to see these as one in the same. Otherwise, you’re wasting your people’s time and not getting the best results for the business. 

It’s possible, if you change the way you enact change. How? By building in broad transparency, bringing people into the fold in new ways and rewarding what you want to become reality. 

It’s time to game the change

When PwC rolled out a large enterprise software adoption, we knew full well that the hurdle to success was getting it right. There’s honest to goodness anxiety that goes into deploying new software or a new way of working. We knew from experience working with clients that many times, these new platforms don’t get ingrained to the level people hope it will. But, we solve very real problems for our clients every single day. So we were determined to solve this one for ourselves, too. 

We needed a way to draw people in, reward the behavior we wanted to see and make it all very transparent. Too often companies bring in big change and mete out info about it on a need-to-know basis--misjudging just how much the end users really need to know.

From the start we made our end goals clear. And we drove to them openly with everyone in the know. One way we did that was by gamifying the change--turning use of our new software into a friendly competition among individuals and teams. Points were earned by doing--and doing was learning. If it wasn’t something our people would need to do regularly using the software, it didn’t earn points. If it was something we knew they needed to get very good at, it was worth more points. And it wasn’t enough to just earn as an individual. Teams in different lines of service competed against one another, too--that meant tax people talking to merger and acquisition consultants, auditors talking to risk and regulatory specialists. Some groups arranged video conferences to coach each other in how to achieve the base score and beyond. We set time limits on some parts of the competition to accumulate points.

The effort was so successful in getting people to adopt and use the software that we’ve stepped it up, to offer the same kind of adoption process as a product for clients. That’s certainly not something we’d intended initially.

We made learning and doing the same thing by tapping into one of the core ways to change behavior--we made it a game, a competition. It was a positive, incentivized, team effort. Yes, sure, it incorporated leader boards and transparency for all--which can seem a bit scary to some. But it turns out in business settings, competition with your peers and knowing where you stand are a powerful way to motivate people. Infusing competition and gamification to encourage the exact behaviors and uses we wanted to get out of our people and the new software.

Learn and adjust

Keep the momentum going. Create an environment where you don’t just get people on the train, but where they want to stay on board for the ride. After all, that’s the only way to get a real return on your giant software investment. Learn from how people behave and use your new system, that way you can tweak and change in the moment to pull out the behaviors you want and continue on the path of learning as doing. 

It’s important to keep your efforts transparent. The competitive aspect, the scoreboards and leaderboards you’ll need to implement to drive change will put people in a position to see how they contribute compared to their peers. It’s likely many of your people didn’t see that so openly before, operating instead as an individual user, not always as a community. Some might be a little put off, which is one reason emphasizing the team element for some initiatives is helpful. 

And for those in charge of change, you can quickly see what’s working and what isn’t, where you need to intervene and where you can ramp up quickly.

If you want your company to be in the 30% of adoptions that succeed, you’ll have to drive change in a new way, empower your people and combine learning with doing. And the truth is, it’s not as daunting a task as it sounds. Transparency. Driving toward the same goals. And a little friendly competition.

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