Rubber Band Effect in Change Management World

As we all know, change is the constant thing in the world. But why is that implementing change is so hard? And even if change is implemented, is it sustainable.

What is rubber-band effect?

Rubber band effect is one where a change is implemented but the organisations slowly, sometimes very rapidly, falls back to its old ways of doing things. It is very similar to our weight-loss plan during January. We do many things such as meeting dieticians or working with fitness trainer in the hope of reducing weight. Some people achieve success initially but eventually gain the weight lost. This effect of unsustainable change effort is called as “Rubber-band” effect.

Why does this occur?

This situation is very typical within many organisations. Everyone (or rather most) agrees that we need to improve the way we do business in order to survive and thrive in this competitive world.  Agreement on change is primarily because they have their rationale cap on and it does make sense to all our analytical brains at the end of the day.  But the underlying success formula is whether the change appeals to our emotional in addition to our analytical side. Therein lays the key to successful sustainable change. Now, how do we ensure that change appeals to both sides? Here is one approach:

Inside-out Approach

Consider a change that has been successfully implemented within an organisation – it does not matter what is the scale or impact of the change. Now, think what factors have actually contributed to the success of the change. If you do not know how to break it down, one way is to use the following change formula, as shown below:

D   *   V   *   F > R

D: Dissatisfaction with the status-quo. 

V: Vision of the future

F: First Steps

R: Resistance to change.

In other words, what were the success factors that can be aligned to D, V and F and how these factors helped the whole change programme to go past R. Then think how these success factors were embedded into business-as-usual. Utilise the lessons learnt from successful ingrown implementation in past and replicate similar conditions for the new changes. By doing so, you will be able to create an environment that is more conducive to organisation culture. One thing to watch out for is the time relativity. Obviously, one cannot copy the change implemented in 60s into current world without any implications.

For illustration, let us revisit the weight-loss example; consider why you were able to succeed in January. What are all the fundamental reasons for success early-on and how does it align with the above change formula. Now, think how can you replicate it across the year. Weight loss is just a metaphoric example but it can be any change of any size. Implanting such positive success for long-term success is what some pundits call as “Positive Root Cause” analysis.  

With that new terminology, I will leave you to do some “positive root cause analysis” for you and/or your organisation. Ponder over a change that has been hard and tried few times. i.e. you have seen the rubber-band effect over and over again. 

Change Transition Curve and Dark Knight Rises

Many people who are involved in a Change in some shape or form go through a transition curve and can relate their experience to the following figure – This does not have to be a change or transformation programme at work although the curve can be easily absorbed in corporate world. 

Take a minute or two to study the transition curve if you are not familiar with the curve.

Now to the question what does this transition curve have in common to Dark Knight Rises? The connection goes in two parts:

Part 1.          How does change happen in an organisation? What happens to leadership?

Part 2.          Is Leadership during change really a super-hero effort?

I am going to answer both these parts and whenever possible, I will try to compare and contrast the scenes from Dark Knight Rises movie (Apologies to those who have not watched the movie – It is a must watch in my opinion).

Part 1:  How does change happen in an organisation? What happens to leadership?

Who are our leaders in the organisation? There is so much emphasis put on leadership, their vision & values for change. No doubts – They are all important. But all set and done, leaders are also people and so they also follow a similar transition curve as mentioned above. But there is a difference – Change leadership go through the transition curve before the rest of the organisation experiences the same. i.e. for example, they hit the depression mode by the time others feel shocked about the change. Pretty bold statement from my side, but there is a lot of truth. Have a private 1-1 conversation, they will probably agree. The following diagram represents the curve that both leadership and the rest of the organisation go through.

Let us compare this to Dark Knight Rises - This is similar to how Batman gets into denial mode when he believes that he can take on the villain Bane by himself but gets defeated first time around while the rest of Gotham experiences shock phase subsequently during the American football match. It does not stop there. Batman goes to the depression stage but he continues to build up in that dark cell and comes back with renewed energy again before the rest of the city.

Theoretically, the transition/change curve of leadership and the rest of the organisation go in parallel (as shown above) but in the real life, there are two factors that play a big role:

1. The Depth of the curve:  
                                        Over the course of change, the highs and especially the lows might and will vary for the leadership and the rest of the organisation. However, what is important is that the leadership curve stays ahead otherwise; the rest of the organisation will start to have its own doubts.


2. The road to recovery: 
                                        The most sensitive part of the change curve is the depression stage. This is where the positive forces of change should tip over the negative forces. Many of the change programmes falter at this point and impact of such failure affect the future change programmes as well.

Part 2: Is Leadership during change really a super-hero effort?

Yes and No. Yes, you need a strong sponsor to run the whole change show. No, because gone are the days of one person championing the whole organisational change. There needs to be involvement from multiple people to support the whole change. Again, this is similar to how Batman defeats Bane. Even though Batman was a single person, he did not do it all by himself. He had allies – Gordon (the commissioner), Blake (the detective), Selina (Kind of cat woman) and an army of cops.

Not only the allies (read Stakeholders) are needed, they need to sustain throughout the course of the change. Consider the following dialogue from Bane (the villain):

“It doesn't matter who we are... what matters is our plan....”

With “Plan, Plan and more plan” strategy, we are walking a tighter rope and hence there is a chance of losing people deliberately or due to circumstances. Just like how Bane kept losing some of this ally during the course of the movie. People work for people and not because there is a plan to follow.

That is why it becomes important that the change leadership style change in order to cater to different phases and needs of the people undergoing transition.

Up till this point, we are considering that the change curve has different stages and both leadership & the rest of the organisation goes through this stage linearly. Generally, that is not the case. Most of the change programme that I have seen, heard or read has an “Oscillation effect” at some point of time or even at time during multiple phases of change.

“What is an Oscillation Effort?” Let us look at an example of that during the depression stage.

It is normal and expected to feel pronounced level of fear, anxiousness and insecurity during an oscillation effect. This is where the leadership and vision does matter. And, if enough attention is not paid to this situation, the performance will go down drastically and a pessimistic feeling can spread within the corporate culture. This is where the communication is very important. Just like how Batman conveys to Gotham with the bat shaped fire on one of the Gotham’s sky scrapers informing that the Dark Knight is back for rescue and to lead Gotham towards safety.

But again, Dark knight was not alone. Remember, he had his allies which prove to stronger at the end. So change is not a one man show. Here is the summary:

• Organisation and Leadership both go through a transition curve
• Leadership through transition need to take different style and approach
• Transition curve is not linear and there can (will) be bumps along the road

Finally, I leave you with one applicable quote for change from Dark Knight Rises:

“A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy's shoulder to let him know that the world hadn't ended.”

Do Newton’s three laws of motion apply to Change Management?

Have you ever been in or seen a situation where a change has failed to materialise or even worse the change (or transformation) programme has been successfully launched but failed to stick and eventually your organisation reverted to old ways of doing things. If your answer is “oh yes” or you are gently nodding your head or recollecting that “one” project, you know what I am talking about.

Still wondering what Newton’s 3 laws of motion doing here, read further:

Law 1:

Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

All organisations and its people are happy to do the same thing that has brought the organisation success in the past and therefore want to maintain the status quo.  i.e. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”. However, that is not true in the current world that we live in. Here is where Newton’s first law comes into picture. There are always forces that are constantly applied to any organisation. External forces such as changes to industry, new players, new market or even a new CEO, bring about change(s). These are the triggers or the reasons for the change management.

These forces should be strong enough to propel changes through completely and successfully. Simply, it should be strong enough to do 2 things – one, move the people out of status quo and two, see through the change fruitfully. Otherwise, things will not just revert to the “old ways” but also affect any future change programmes. How? Returning to old ways and the pace at which the changes are rolled back creates a strong impression within the culture of the organisation and it will take a lot more effort to move the organisation away from its steady state of motion.

Law2:

The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

After all, we want to make change successful and we do need to build momentum. I did mention above that, the forces should be strong enough to finish the marathon called Change. There are two chief requirements for a force though.

1. Greater the size, the stronger the force is required.  Consider the diagram; there are two components in play here: The sheer size of the change (rock that is pushed up) and the environment (hill) in which the change is carried out and which plays a big part too in change acceleration.  Although I have used this diagram to show a case, this is not representative of all cases.  The situation could vary anywhere from moving small stone in a flat surface to even massive stone up a big mountain.


2. Acceleration in right direction. To push the rock up the hill, the force or the effort to make the change happen depends on where the effort is applied. Lot of effort will be wasted if the effort is not directly against the lines of gravitation.  Many a times, knowing where the gravitation force is a tough one. And, this is where we need the right people, tools and skills. This gravitation in change management dictionary is called as resistance and that takes us into the next law.

Law 3:

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

As we move along with the change programme, there is always resistance.  The change equation is given by:

D   *   V   *   F  > R

D: Dissatisfaction with the status-quo.  Why I law is applied.

V: Vision of the future

F: First Steps

R: Resistance to change.

While the first steps of the change management prepare the organisation for the change (Change Readiness assessment and factors that influence the success of change), resistance goes beyond the first stage of change management and that is why Newton’s III law is very true. Resistance is not bad. Consider any sports – A player or team has to elevate the level of its/their own game when pitted against a worthy opponent. In the same way, proponents of change should look to use the opportunity provided by resistance to increase the penetration of change. By doing that, there is a twofold advantage: First, change is accepted more widely and two, more importantly resistance is reduced or eliminated. It is better to eliminate resistance otherwise, it can modify the balance of change equation mentioned above to topple the change effort. Once the change effort starts to disintegrate, it is difficult to stop that chain reaction. i.e. equivalent of a rock rolling down the hill.

Now let us put all of these things together. While it is easy to break change management into three parts and analyse, things are not so easy in reality.  Why it is so complex might be the question? It is because of the fact that three laws are happening at the same time and organisations these days are running a few transformation programmes simultaneously, which complicates this problem further.  

Finally, I leave you with one line from Charles Kettering:

“The world hates change but that is the only thing that has brought progress.”