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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE:
THE ESSENTIAL
SURVIVAL GUIDE
Ahoy there, fearless leader!

Like any grand adventure, changing an organization’s culture requires skill, daring, and
yes, good fortune. You’ll scale peaks of difficulty and cross valleys of doubt, taste the sweet
nectar of victory and drink from the bitter cup of defeat—oftentimes within the same day.
And inevitably, there will come a point when even the most intrepid, valiant leader will ask
themselves, “What the hell was I thinking?”

This guide is for those moments, when all hope seems lost, when stormy skies blot out your
team’s North Star. The fearless organizational experts at NOBL have compiled possible
scenarios that you may experience along your journey, and how best to heed the warnings
of those who came before you, and you and your colleagues may yet emerge with an above
average annual performance review.

Go forth, and make change!

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SELECT YOUR PATH!
The Team Is Blocking Change 4

The Executive Team Is Blocking Change 8

Change Is Going Awry 11

Change Just Isn’t Happening 14

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THE TEAM IS BLOCKING
CHANGE
 “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.
Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.”
— Recruitment ad for Ernest Shackleton’s South Pole expedition

The team is hesitant to embark on the endeavor!

The first order of business is to sort each member of your team. Champions are
invigorated by the possibilities of change. In fact, they may very well have their
own ideas about what needs to change, and will charge ahead of their own
CHAMPIONS
accord. Cynics believe change to be nigh impossible. Their
resistance is often due to painful past experience—either a prior initiative
failed, or it stopped short of what was needed, resulting in a worse situation.
CYNICS
Fence-sitters will watch for favorable winds before committing.
They will withhold their support until they are assured that change is a fait
accompli. These shirkers make up the majority of the workforce. FENCE-SITTERS

Once allegiances have been determined, let champions blaze the trail. Entrust them with
projects that are dear to their heart, empower them to enlist others in the fight, support their
ideas. If one of their recommendations won’t work, commend them for their enthusiasm, but
be explicit about why they cannot proceed. Meanwhile, maintain a steady course with cynics.
Attempts at persuasion will be of no avail; instead, one must lend an empathetic ear. The cynic
is often a disappointed idealist, and if you can deliver on a promise, they’ll rally to your cause.

It may go against your instincts, but pay no heed to the fence-sitters. Tally up your initial
victories, and let the champions and converted cynics appeal to the fence-sitters. Be steadfast
in your efforts to enact change, and make victories visible to all—they’ll quickly jump on the
bandwagon.

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The team recoils in the
face of change!
Teams often fear change with good reason—
it is commonly associated with restructures
and layoffs. Assuage these fears by reforming
processes and resources first, and only
restructure as a last resort. Even a necessary
restructuring is painful, and the longer it
takes, the worse it gets. Aim to complete a
restructure in three to nine months. If layoffs
are unavoidable, be honest, upfront—and
only do it once. One round of layoffs is
understandable, but multiple rounds decrease
morale, and survivors question who’s next.
Previous initiatives may have also left a bad taste
in the team’s mouth. In which case, survey the
team to determine what went wrong during the
last major change, and develop a counterattack.
Then, share your plan with the team to prove
that you’ve planned for contingencies.
The team is worn thin from ceaseless change!
Fig 1. Pick your battles: refrain from Fig. 2 Eliminate or delay other tasks to
changing everything, in all directions, all dedicate more time to change.
at once.
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Dr. Perkins’
Remedies for Rejuvenation*
Do you or your team suffer from feeling:
• Emotionally drained?
• Alienated, underappreciated, or ostracized by
colleagues?
• Like you are failing to achieve your personal
best?
Then try one of these remarkable remedies to
return the pep to your step:
• Try focused breathing exercises, which can tap
into your parasympathetic nervous system to
help you reduce or manage stress.
• Take frequent breaks: for every 20 minutes
spent on a single task, step away for five
minutes.
• Supply ergonomic chairs and desks, like a sit-
stand arrangement.
• Discuss work-related issues and stress with a
trusted mentor for perspective.
• Engage in hobbies or activities through which
you can decompress and find the mastery
or closure that work may not provide at the
moment.
• As the case allows, work remotely to change
your habitat.
• Build camaraderie—the most effective cure—
within the team.
*The Ph.D-in-Organizational-Psychology
kind of doctor
Fig. 3 Stake out milestones to celebrate
and pauses to bolster the team’s spirits
The team doubts change is possible!

1. Query the team. Inquire as to what change the team would like to see. If they’re skeptical
as to its likelihood of success, ask them to make a ridiculous request—often, it can be
engineered into a reasonable solution.
2. Call for volunteers. Organize a team, put a champion in charge, and have them experiment
with a potential solution for said issue. Remove obstacles the team may encounter, but let
them take the reins—they must achieve this victory of their own accord.
3. Hold fast to a deadline. It’s all too easy to delay results by making a valiant, but ultimately
foolhardy, bid for perfection. Hold the team’s feet to the fire by setting a deadline for a
workable solution, and run structured, efficient meetings to keep discussions on schedule.
4. Withhold judgement. If you scuttle ideas at an early stage, you will smother the sparks of
change, and it will be twice as hard to get your team to trust your intent.

5. Take risks that are “safe to fail,” not “fail-safe.” Apply the solution to a limited part of the
business, where even utter failure won’t cause irreparable harm. Continue to adapt the
solution until it is ready for the organization at large.
6. Seek glory. Having wrested triumph from uncertainty and chaos, make sure the rest
of the organization knows about it. Lavish the team with praise at meetings with your
superiors, shout your results during all-hands and cross-functional meetings. Change is
self-reinforcing: the more people see it occuring, the more they’ll be willing to undertake
it themselves.

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 THE
EXECUTIVE
TEAM IS
BLOCKING
CHANGE

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Executives are hindering change!
Pick an option below:

Strike at the heart Build alliances Raise an army

No one, not even the most
magnanimous among us,
acts until they’re convinced
it’s in their best interest.
Your first task is to ascertain
the leader’s goals and appeal
to their lust for glory. Do
they style themselves as
visionaries? Do they wish
to leave a lasting legacy?
Too often, leaders reject
new methods because “it’s
always been done that way,”
or they’re discounted as
youthful idealism. Whet
their appetite for change
by describing a competitive
advantage that will drive
peers wild with envy.
Enlist an executive sponsor
to wield their influence
on your behalf. First, be
forthright. Executives
have very limited time and
attention span, so tell them
exactly how you need their
support. Next, make the
appeal personal: perhaps
they consider themselves
mavericks, or they have
a passion for the change
that you’re suggesting.
Once they’ve pledged
their support, update them
regularly so they feel duty-
bound to continue in the
role.
There’s strength in numbers:
canvas your colleagues to
determine who has a shared
interest in change, and
coordinate your feedback
to the leader. It’s easy to
ignore feedback from one
person, but repetition can
be convincing. Likewise,
a team survey can provide
evidence of what’s really
going on at the ground
level.

Failing that, strike fear

into their hearts about
the alternative to change.
Even the boldest leaders
are motivated more by fear
of loss than hope of gain,
so show how the company
risks being left behind.
Can they practically feel
competitors nipping at
their profit margins? Do
the latest sales figures leave
them unsettled? Press your
advantage.

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Permission to change was denied!

Fig. 1 Determine what you’re willing to risk to prove yourself—

what results will prove the rightness of your position?

Fig. 2 Avoid the worst-case scenario by implementing your idea in such a manner that
even a total failure won’t cause irreparable harm.
(Needless to say, avoid illegal or unethical gambles.)

Fig. 3 Damn the torpedoes, forge ahead with the change.

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 CHANGE IS
GOING AWRY

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 “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
— Daniel Boone

We’re changing solely for the sake of change!

Cast your lot:

Volunteer as a champion. Take the lead on a project and

rally the troops to your leader’s side. Once recognized as an
ally, suggest ideas that complement their work—then take
ownership of these tasks and ensure they succeed.

Stand aside as a fence-sitter. If you doubt the plan, merely

meet expectations. Attend the meetings and complete your
tasks, but do not commit yourself to more. Take heed of
others adopting the changes (or not) to determine your
ongoing course of action.

Egads—the team is making the wrong change!

In the event that you see the team navigating towards certain disaster—for instance, it goes
against the objectives the team laid out in the beginning, or you’ve seen a similar change
backfire before, you have several options to right the course.

Cast doubt. If change has just begun, and people are not yet set in their ways, ask questions
that bring potential problems to light like, “what would the result of this action be?” How
would we deal with it?”

Lead a post-mortem. Facilitate a post-mortem, or retrospective, so that participants can judge

the project’s success thus far.
1. Map out the timeline. Gather people who have been involved in the project, and ask them
to list and order the key milestones in the project.

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2. Call out triumphs. Reviewing the timeline, ask the team to reflect on what’s been successful,
and why. They must be as specific as possible: rather than “great meeting,” note, “Meeting
with a clear objective and assigned action steps.”
3. Admit to failures. Now have them review times of struggle, again being specific—replace
“Scant collaboration,” with “Leaders withheld information from other teams.” Stress that
this isn’t an opportunity to assign blame or re-litigate the past, but rather, an opportunity
to ensure future success.
4. Propose new principles. Ask them to recommend rules or policies for what to double down
on or avoid going forward. They can also suggest projects to immediately correct things
that are going wrong.

Go to the top. In dire Watch out! For legal

straits, go above your leader. quandaries, seek legal or ethical
Meet with higher levels to counsel.
explain the potential risks, and why the change
isn’t working. Bring them along the discovery journey: start by explaining how you
were initially excited by the changes, but you became disillusioned as things developed. Be
ready to share alternatives to the existing course of action.

Of course, if the people at the top disagree with your rationale, you run the risk of being
marked as a troublemaker. It’s entirely possible this will filter down to your immediate leader,
which will impact your career, so it’s best to have other career options prepared in advance.
Remember the scout’s motto: be prepared.

is op po sed to cha ng e du e to the ir cha ra cte r-as opposed to

Danger! If you insinuate that a leader er mutable subject-you risk it coming back to haunt you.
their career interest, opinion, or oth

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 CHANGE JUST
ISN’T HAPPENING

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 “When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”
Change is being stymied!
Sound the alarm.
It is only human nature to fear
loss more than to desire gain, so
if change should falter, goad the
team into action with a useful
threat. Create a business case
to demonstrate that the current
path is folly, and that an urgent
response is called for.
— Teddy Roosevelt
Implement rapid-fire change: Take the bull by the horns.
1. Seek out blatant failures. Change something that is
Find something that affects completely within your control
people on a daily basis, like and highly visible to others.
long meetings or a broken People won’t believe in change
coffee machine. until they see it happening, so
2. Hit the problem hard. Task change something as simple as a
the team with finding the broken door, breakroom snacks,
cheapest, easiest solution or your own personal behavior.
possible—the “Minimum Actions speak louder than words.
Viable Product.” Instead of
hiring a company to develop
new brand guidelines, for
instance, can you identify
what makes an existing ad
delightful?
3. Experiment. Make it “safe
to fail” by applying it to
areas of the business that
are relatively contained.
That way, even if complete
catastrophe ensues, business
carries on as usual.
4. Try, try, and try again.
Review learnings with the
team and decide on your
next plan of attack. Continue
experimentation until the
results meet the needs of the
team at large.
5. Trumpet the results.
Everyone must share the
story about how change
happened, and what the
results were.
ng
mu st ha ve re al im pa ct . Nothing is more dispiritifail.
Caution! These stories oting “excellence” when the simplest things
than seeing posters prom
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There’s no time to change!
1. Identify an existing task that takes a lot of
time. Meetings are a splendid starting point,
seeing how they dominate schedules, but it
could be anything from decision-making to
creating weekly reports.
2. Make tactical adjustments. Try something
new, like appointing a facilitator or setting
a timer to keep discussion on track.
3. Call for a halt. Sometimes, the most
effective decision is to simply stop—don’t
send out a report, or attend a meeting—and
see if takes hold.
4. Never cease your efforts. One by one,
make little improvements and stop non-
productive work. Over time, this will free
you up to tackle bigger challenges.
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Signs of Sabotage
Have you noticed someone:
• Vaguely affirming their support, but
failing to follow through?
• Claiming there’s “no time” for change,
but cheerfully taking on less important
tasks?
• Appealing to “reason” and “caution,”
ultimately delaying progress?
You may have a (witting or unwitting)
saboteur on your hands. Given the
state of most organizations, these
“tactics” are often the regular course
of business. If you suspect someone is
actively trying to harm change efforts,
engage them as you would a cynic.
Listen empathetically, discuss their
needs, and enlist a champion who has
a good relationship with them to win
them over. If the sabotage continues,
however, swiftly isolate the saboteur to
limit the damage they can do. It may be
necessary to reassign their change tasks
to someone else.
The Beginning

If you’ve made it to this point, congratulations are in order. Changing the culture—and dare
we say, destiny—of a team is a great feat in deed. And yet, it is also the natural order of things.
Far from disliking change, humans evolved to thrive in an environment that is dynamic, not
static. Flexible and responsive, we are able to make trade-offs, survive, and thrive in whatever
social and physical environment we find ourselves. In fact, when that change is successful, it
often escapes notice, as we can’t imagine any other way of being. So it is with change within
organizations: a healthy, adaptive culture simply becomes the way work is done.

That said, you don’t have to undertake the journey alone. Should you seek further assistance
with your organization’s culture or have queries about this booklet, the humble organizational
culture guides of NOBL are at your service.

NOBL.io
heart@nobl.io

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