The Curse of Instant Gratification
Are you looking for quick-fix solutions to change management? David Molden considers how organisations can ensure their people are wired positively for change.
As trainers, facilitators and coaches to private and public sector organisations we get a reasonably good insight to the various ways people try to create change. Evidence abounds of the conventional approach which attempts to create fast change driven by the market or stakeholder demands, but there is a more recent emerging trend to drive change deeply into the core beliefs of employees. The former approach is based upon one change at a time, and is usually a knee-jerk type reaction aimed at moving from the current situation to a desired future scenario. The expectation is that the new state will be quick to create, and be as steady as the last.
There is far less evidence of the emerging latter approach, but it does seem to be delivering much higher value, on two counts. The first is that the newly created state is longer lasting, and the second is that people are much better able to accept and indeed champion future changes. This emerging trend makes absolute sense to anyone in business for the long term, because nothing is as safe a bet as the future will continue to require people to change.
The more we observe these approaches to change the more we see the former conventional approach reflected widely in society. If you take a look around you will observe people everywhere looking for instant gratification of one sort or another. There seems to be a growing obsession in society at large for instant payback. Notice how advertising is changing. We have faster moving images and sound bites hypnotising us into brand loyalty. Soap operas and comedy serials move faster these days pushing shorter bursts of multiple scenarios onto our screens. Product life-cycles are shortening as consumers demand new and different functionality from their gadgets. Anyone who can keep up with fashion is probably earning much more than they need.
Notice also the unprecedented rise in the number of places where you can gamble. Walk down any suburban high street or shopping area and you will see that betting shops now appear in clusters. Count the number of gaming websites, scratch-cards, lotto tickets and competitions, and win yourself an ipod if you get within 200 of the actual figure. I don’t know anyone who is financially well-off who gambles in the hope of making more money. Maybe this is because few people get rich by gambling, and history shows that those who beat the odds and are lucky enough to win have difficulty managing their finances, and often end up losing everything in a short space of time. People who gamble are usually poorer than they want to be, whilst the professional gambler likes a little more control over the odds and is more likely to invest in the stock market.
There are more gurus giving us the secrets of wealth creation, and they are drawing larger audiences of people who want to be saved from the labour of working it out for themselves. Make me rich, make me thin, make me attractive, make me sexy and make me happy. It’s as though people are giving up on themselves and looking elsewhere for their instant gratification.
Organisations also seek instant gratification. They want an instant return on their investment. This is to be expected if you are buying raw materials, or new technology, but less likely in the change stakes. Yet this doesn’t seem to prevent some companies from ‘sheep-dipping’ people in the hope that large scale behaviour change will follow. It rarely does. For this you need to bite the bullet and take a longer term view, so that change can become an integral part of what people do every day. The next change will not be so easy to predict, so when it arrives on your doorstep you need to act quickly. If your people are wired positively for change you will be able to respond in good time. However, if they have just gotten used to the last change then you are probably going to sheep-dip once again.
When it comes to equipping people with skills, there is no skill in greater demand than the ability to embrace and adapt positively to change. This fact alone is responsible for the growth in personal development courses such as Quadrant 1’s RealSuccess programme which work at a deep level and result in smarter thinking and a positive outlook towards change. But it is early days yet. Many blue chip employers are not getting this message on their radar. Many are actively filtering it out and staying with convention. Does this mean they prefer to keep their employees in the dark? What are they worried about? If employees end up thinking smarter might they use their newfound wisdom to find a more up-to-date company to work for? Perhaps one which knows how to tap into their true potential and provide a real stretch and challenge to their capability?
