What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell You: Adapting to Change with the Science of Behavioral Economics (Change Management Book)

A Science-Based Organizational Change Roadmap for Managers

“A science-based playbook that is a must-read for every manager of people…” —John A. List, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Voltage Effect and The Why Axis

#1 New Release in Office Management and Business Operations Research

Adapting to change is part of life. But, change is hard and managing change is even harder.

First, understand how the brain works. Because we really don’t know how the brain works, we don’t know what makes us more receptive to change.  Employees can’t tell their managers what they need to “get on the train”, and managers don’t know either.

How to get your team on board. In her first book, What Your Customer Wants and Can't Tell You, author and behavioral economics specialist Melina Palmer, applies the science of behavioral economics to unlocking what is behind customer decisions. Behavioral economics combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave the way they do in the real world. Now, in her sequel, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You, she offers a highly actionable roadmap for business executives and managers faced with the task of instituting successful organizational change.

Actionable behavioral economics for successful change management. What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You delivers insights and research from behavioral economics and the greater behavioral sciences, presented in an enjoyable way that you can actually use to get results.

Inside find:

• An introduction to how the brain really works when faced with change
• Insights into key biases and concepts the subconscious brain uses to make decisions
• “Apply it” sections with tips on how to start using what you have learned—immediately

If you are responsible for managing change and have tried books such as The Heart of Business, Humanocracy, or Change, you should read Melina Palmer’s What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You.

From Chapter 1

Change is hard.

Would you agree with that statement? Most people do. After all, we’ve been taught this for essentially our entire lives. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” right?

As it turns out, old dogs can learn new tricks (and according to some they do so faster and easier than younger dogs because they aren’t as easily distracted). I’m here to tell you that, while we have been taught it for years, change doesn’t have to be hard.

If you approach change properly, it can actually be quite easy. In fact, people naturally and happily change all the time, we just tend to ignore the signs of it.

Since you are reading this book, I’m guessing you have had some interest in change and helping yourself and your team to be better at it. At one point or another you have likely come across the widely quoted statistic that 70 percent of change initiatives fail.

Here’s the good news and bad news: according to a review in the Journal of Change Management which looked at five separate initiatives using this statistic, “there is no valid and reliable empirical evidence to support such a narrative.”

You may be wondering if that is the good news or the bad news. The answer is, it’s both. On the plus side, we don’t need to feel bound by this unfounded, but widely claimed statistic anymore. On the minus side, we don’t have a number for the percentage of change initiatives that actually fail – in reality it could be more than 70 percent. And, unfortunately, because there isn’t another statistic out there to replace this one people will continue to cite that inaccurate claim and tout it as the gospel truth. How do I know that?

Sadly, that review in the Journal of Change Management isn’t new. It was published in 2011 (more than a decade before my writing this book). Because we have negativity bias and familiarity bias (which you’ll learn about in Part II) and love sensationalized headlines, we tend to believe what we hear often regardless of how true it is. If you search on Google for “70 percent of change initiatives fail” you will get approximately 251 million results. According to the page for the article that explains there is no empirical evidence to support that claim, it has been viewed 19,009 times. Even if that number is off by a figure of ten times (or 100!), we are still way out of proportion with the misinformation.

While we can’t change that, here is some more good news: now you know. And you can do something about it.

You can be a great manager and lead your employees through change in a way that feels natural; where they are happier, the business is more successful, and everyone wins. I promise it’s not in a utopian land of unicorns and rainbows. This truly is achievable for all kinds of managers, regardless of background, personality type, or experience. If you are ready to learn, I will teach you the art of change (which is solidly based in and backed by science).

So, what is the trick to being naturally better at change (and to help those around you to be more accepting of it as well)? As you will learn throughout this book, it takes an understanding of the rules of the brain and then working with those rules instead of against them. That’s essentially it.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me – there are no “silver bullets” when it comes to change. It does still take effort to get people on board with change, but the tools provided for you within this book will give you the ability to shift your focus from being a victim of the reactions of others, to updating the way you present the information to them so you get the reaction you are looking for more often.