Roger is now about five posts into his ‘Starting Over’ series … advice on taking an entirely fresh look at what it will take going forward to succeed with nonprofit fundraising.

[Note: I actually made a spelling mistake in the last word of the previous sentence … originally writing ‘fundraiding’! Now is that Freudian or what?! How deep are our mindsets!]

Ironically, the topic of this post is resistance to change … and overcoming it. No point in reading Roger’s series if you’re not prepared to change.

Catching up on some ‘theoretical’ reading as I watched the build-up to the suspense of fifth sets in several Wimbledon matches, I came across this article from consulting firm McKinsey, The four building blocks of change.

McKinsey is talking about what organisations must do if they want to introduce and sustain change. Of course, this assumes that someone — ideally someone with clout, will power and  persistence — in your organization actually wants to change. Is that you?

Then read on.

McKinsey boils it down to four key actions: “In both research and practice, we find that transformations stand the best chance of success when they focus on four key actions to change mind-sets and behavior: fostering understanding and conviction, reinforcing changes through formal mechanisms, developing talent and skills, and role modeling.”

Fostering understanding and conviction — “Believing in the ‘why’ behind a change can inspire people to change their behavior.” However McKinsey notes that too many leaders trying to encourage change incorrectly assume that everyone in their organization understands ‘why’ change is needed: They “overestimate the extent to which others share their own attitudes, beliefs, and opinions—a tendency known as the false-consensus effect. Studies also highlight another contributing phenomenon, the ‘curse of knowledge’: people find it difficult to imagine that others don’t know something that they themselves do know.”

McKinsey recommends that “leaders develop a change story that helps all stakeholders understand where the company is headed, why it is changing, and why this change is important.”

Reinforcing with formal mechanisms — from Pavlov to Skinner, we know that behaviour reinforcement works! Of course, tying compensation to achieving the change outcomes helps. But McKinsey emphasizes something more subtle: “What really drives performance”, they say. is “collaboration and purpose.” Does your nonprofit explicitly reward both individual and team innovation?

Developing talent and skills — this seems like a no-brainer, no? Here’s the McKinsey twist: “Despite an amazing ability to learn new things, human beings all too often lack insight into what they need to know but don’t. Biases, for example, can lead people to overlook their limitations and be overconfident of their abilities.” Their cheeky observation: one study found that “84 percent of Frenchmen believe they are above-average lovers.”

But seriously, McKinsey observes that people handicap themselves by doubting their ability to change. “…people who believe that developing new skills won’t change a situation are more likely to be passive … Instilling a sense of control and competence can promote an active effort to improve.”

Role modeling — both consciously and unconsciously, people “align their own thinking and behavior with those of other people—to learn, to determine what’s right, and sometimes just to fit in.” Someone, or some group, within your organization must model the virtues of change. Is that you and your team?

Here’s the graphic version …

You might want to share this chart with your boss or chief executive. You can always stick it on her desk anonymously. Not all change needs to be led from the front!

Tom