How families took control of change: Jamie Oliver’s school dinners

If we go back to the work of Maslow and Hertzberg, they studied what motivates people at work. In order to understand why people react to change in the way that they do, it's important to look at how people are motivated at work, identify those areas that are most heavily impacted by change, and these can be reduced down to five forces of change, another key to leading successful change. Firstly, we have certainty. People's need for certainty about the future and their role within it. Then we have purpose, people's need for a greater sense of purpose and the purpose for change. The third force of change is control our need, the control over the things that affect us. The fourth force is connection, our connection to people, and also our connection to our organization and the way we do things around here. Finally, there is our need for success. All of these motivators are endangered by change. They can be undermined by change, and that lies at the root of the problem with change.

The third force of change is control. Control is our desire to control over the things that affect us. If you've ever been micromanaged, think about what that was like. Think about how that restricted your ability to innovate, to take the initiative, to think for yourself.

Having change imposed on you from the outside, well, there's a similar pattern. You have feelings of loss of control, particularly amongst managers there's a feeling of loss of power and authority over what needs to be done and who needs to do it. When change is imposed from the outside, we can be also made to look foolish as if the things that we've been doing all along were somehow incorrect. So when faced with change imposed by others, response is often either to fight or to flee. Fight involves picking holes in the change, looking for loopholes, opposing the change. Flight involves mentally checking out, just avoiding the change and hoping it'll blow over. Neither of these responses is of course helpful to making change happen.