When was the last time you consulted your team members about a planned technology change or investment? Never, right? Instead, you look at the metrics, balance the various return on investment figures, and determine whether to invest in a new platform.
However, a mere three months later, your entire team has largely abandoned the new platform and reverted to how things were done before. As frustrating as this situation is, it helps reveal a key issue: You and your team have different perspectives and priorities.
It really boils down to the impression you present to those you’ve hired to do the work. If you’re communicating that your employees are another asset listed on a spreadsheet, next to your workstations and chairs, they aren’t going to be inspired to go the distance for your business. This is pretty much the impression you share whenever you unilaterally make a decision that impacts your team. Any pushback is almost certainly because this change is going to be perceived as an obstacle, not an improvement.
You may currently be feeling the impact of your team resisting a new tool, or you may be considering a new tool and want to get ahead of this kind of resistance. Fortunately, changing the narrative from one of dictation to one of collaboration is easier than one might expect.
Allow your team some ownership over their tools. Instead of assuming a problem exists and implementing a fix, ask them where they feel resistance in their day. Where are their frustrations derived from? They will be much more likely to accept a change that solves the problems they are actively dealing with, instead of one that’s meant to fix what the higher-ups assume is a problem.
While the expression, “Nobody wants to see how the sausage is made,” generally applies to all the unpleasant parts of a process, a slightly different interpretation applies to your business tech. Your team doesn’t care how their essential tools work; they just care that they do. If it makes their workday easier or eliminates a pain-in-the-butt task, that’s all they want or need to know.
Much like you wouldn’t teach someone to drive by entering them in a Grand Prix, you shouldn’t just give your employees a new tool and expect them to immediately master it. Make sure you provide the tools and resources for your team to familiarize themselves with their new toolkit, and give them the space to do so.
Some problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them. There are times when a new investment is actually a bad thing, and the right approach is simply to use what you already have more completely. You might be able to save yourself a bit of money as you get more done.
Your business and the employees you’ve hired to keep it running must maintain a balanced relationship… something that forced rollouts of ill-explained technology don’t exactly promote. Confusing your team members or making their jobs harder is a very effective way to promote invisible burnout: they’ll do the work, just not necessarily how you want them to.
We can help you evaluate your planned IT investment and ensure you and your team are on the same page, supporting both of you as your friendly neighborhood business technology consultant. Learn more by calling First Column IT at (571) 470-5594.
