You need time to digest a large meal. The same is true for change. The higher up people are in an organisation, the longer they have to think about it, process it and digest it. The further down the line of command we are, the less time we get to think about a change; those on the shop floor often get very little time at all. Unfortunately, those at the top often don’t recognise that they have had more time to get used to a new plan, and they expect others to accept it very quickly.

To make change happen successfully with the minimum of stress, and make it stick, plan in good time to allow people to feel happy with what they need to do, and why. This is hard when you are raring to go and will feel like

an unnecessary delay, but you cannot change in isolation. You need your team to be following; you do not want to be chasing them.

From personal experience, we all know that when we feel we are a part of the change, we will be more motivated to make the change. But if we feel a change is being done to us, we tend to drag our heels. People working at a management level will feel this way, but people working on the shop floor will also feel this way. If you can find ways of involving people in decision-making, you will reduce resistance and improve engagement and motivation.