When it comes to change, there is a Late Majority that is against transformation almost all the time. Even when an old system is on its last legs, these groups still find reasons why a new system, process or approach is really bad and will drive the company to bankruptcy.
The late majority is the last active group to contribute to the change. Once they are emotionally through the change, the new system is running extremely well, new customers have been won and so on, sometimes the same people say things like, „I always knew that the new system would be excellent for us.“
I enjoy chatting with these people over coffee to understand when the change of heart took place and whether I could have accelerated it in any way. The amazing thing is that everyone I have spoken to denies ever having been an opponent of the new.
Even if a person sitting next to him confirms that he actively worked against the innovation, all I hear are excuses like, “I didn’t mean it that way”. No matter how transparent or fault-tolerant the customer culture was, they always deny that they were ever against the new, now superior system.
In this context, initial reservations are perfectly understandable. If an organisation has waited too long, has been driven to wear and tear, the staff is often so stressed that a transformation seems like an impossible burden. When, after a successful transformation, an initial objector says, “Yes, I thought the team couldn’t carry that too.” That is perfectly understandable.
For change processes, the reluctant players are most important too, they help to stabilise at the beginning and at the end they sometimes have the chance to introduce the new system even better than the early adopters. Have the courage to admit that you were a doubter at the beginning, because we can all learn from that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
