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Welcome to Future-state Thinking, my weekly newsletter where I give actionable content, insights and tools for business and personal growth from my experience as an innovator and entrepreneur.
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Hi Reader,
“To change a stuck system you need to find leverage points and work out where are you going to get the resources from to push in a new direction” – Dan Heath
The Friction, the Flow, and the Path Forward
Change often feels like pushing a boulder uphill. The more we push, the more resistance we encounter. Leaders introduce new strategies, processes, or technologies, only to be met with hesitation, confusion, or outright opposition.
But what if the issue isn’t the effort we apply but the path we’re taking?
Instead of forcing change, what if we found ways to remove friction and make change feel natural, even desirable?
How Shiftwell Motors Made Change Work With Its People, Not Against Them
Let’s look at Shiftwell Motors, a mock company to show how you might apply the lessons from Reset – How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath.
Facing declining production efficiency and increased workplace injuries, Shiftwell leadership decided to overhaul factory processes with automation and new workflow structures.
The logic was sound: increase safety, reduce errors, and improve output. But workers weren’t convinced. Resistance was immediate.
Employees worried about job security struggled to adapt to new routines and lacked clarity on why these changes were necessary. It wasn’t just an operational shift – it was a human one.
Here’s how Shiftwell might have used the two key principles and possible actions:
Principle 1: Find Leverage Points
Leverage points are points where a little effort can give outsized returns. You can identify leverage points by:
1) Go and see the work: Spend time on the factory floor, listening to workers’ frustrations and concerns firsthand and seeing the work in motion. The objective is to grasp the reality of the problem.
2) Consider the goal of the goal: Instead of focusing solely on efficiency, they reframed the goal as “building a safer, smarter workplace.” This is new lens opens up alternative thinking to achieve the long term goal.
3) Study the bright spots: They identified teams that had already adopted certain aspects of automation successfully and learned what worked. This point is about replicating and amplifying what’s working well – moments of success.
4) Target the constraint: Data revealed that outdated safety training, not automation, was a major friction point. In any system there are forces or constraints that limit the output. Work to overcome the constraint and then the next.
5) Map the system: They visualised the network of processes, showing workers how each change fit into the bigger picture. This is about visualising and having a source of truth on the system and the opportunities to work on.
Principle 2: Restack Resources
Shiftwell didn’t just demand adaptation; they enabled it. Borrowing from Reset’s second principle, they focused on:
1) Starting with a burst: Short-term wins, making an immediate small but meaningful change to build confidence. The biggest motivator is seeing progress.
2) Recycling waste: They discontinued outdated reports and meetings that no longer served a clear purpose, freeing up time for workers to focus on adapting to the new workflows. If something doesn’t serve the mission – stop doing it.
3) Doing less and doing more: They cut redundant procedures while doubling down on communication. Find the value and focus on doing more of that.
4) Tapping motivation: They involved employees in co-designing workflow changes ensuring buy-in. Find the overlap between what’s desired and what’s required and do those things.
5) Letting people drive: Workers had a say in implementation timelines, giving them ownership of the transition. Rather than telling people how to do something, when they are aligned on the goal, let them solve the challenge.
6) Accelerating learning: They introduced real-time feedback loops by implementing shorter review cycles and direct check-ins with frontline workers, ensuring adjustments could be made swiftly based on hands-on experience. Use better, faster feedback loops.
Call to Action
Change is often painful because it’s treated as a top-down directive rather than a collective evolution. Leaders must focus on reducing friction and enabling flow by:
1) Identifying leverage points that can provide outsized results.
2) Then, restocking resources to reallocate time, effort and resources on the leverage points.
Next time you’re leading change, ask: Are we making this easier or harder for the people who need to adopt it?
See you next week,
Vaughan
Helping 34,751 smart people learn human-centred innovation
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