Change Is Hard

Why is change so hard for your team members? In particular, if the strategic objectives are so important to the organization, why do team members struggle to execute against their goals? Some reasons could include:

1. The goals are unrealistic to achieve or lack clarity. Sometimes, there are too many goals to complete for a team member. In other cases, the goal might not be influenceable. As a result, the team member does not believe they will succeed.
2. The goals are not meaningful, are vanity goals, or require too much work to create and manage. Sometimes, the goal might create bad behavior in the organization or misalignments. As a result, the team member does not believe there is value in the goal or that execution on the goal is worth the effort.
3. The goals, while important,important are distant. Team members perceive there is plenty of time to execute on the goal. Addressing issues that exist here and now are more important than focusing on long-range objectives. Experience might have taught the team member the goals will change. As a result, team members will focus on the short term.

We can explain these reasons using the temporal motivation theory (TMT). Developed by Dr. Piers Steel and Cornelius J. König, TMT integrates two ideas: the expectancy theory with hyperbolic discounting. The theory describes the factors of what motivates individuals to action. They expressed TMT as an equation with 4 variables:

1. A person is more likely to do things at which they expect to succeed (EXPECTANCY) and they value (VALUE), and
2. A person will discount future rewards in favor of immediate rewards (DELAY) which is moderated by their tolerance for or sensitivity to delay (IMPULSIVENESS).

People are not lazy or have bad attitudes when they don’t follow through on their goals. Rather, they do not perceive the usefulness of the goal. OKC seeks to change this equation by increasing success, ensuring value of the goal, and shortening the time to realize progress towards a goal.

Does you team struggle with change? Reach out to us for help.