Helping Technology spurred change take

My Monday prior to the holiday kicked itself off with a colleague visiting me asking for strategies to help facilitate some change within her department. Much of this change involves technology, so she thought, having earned the representation as change goddess in my organization, I might be able to help.

Facilitating change has been a constant part of my career as a librarian. This is likely because change doesn’t really scare me, I am more afraid of being bored or useless. Until this summer I’d never been to a workshop on “change management”, my lessons in helping colleagues have come from real world successes and failures. So here are some lessons learned that I shared with my colleague.

1. Make whatever technology you are implementing fool proof and easy.
   Technology and change seem to freak people out. So having a product that is painful only makes this worse. Make sure that when you put something out for primetime that it is simple and usable. If the product is difficult to use, then people become even more recalcitrant.
2. Provide people with training on the technology and lots of “reminders” to help them when they forget.
   Even if your product is dead easy to use. People need training. There is something psychological about training that helps people feel more comfortable with a new product. I think some of this is the “is this how I’m suppose to…” factor. While some people like to experiment, many like to have a tried and true methodology demonstrated. They want to feel some degree of confidence when they go to use the tool for real. Training provides this. Remember though that 10 minutes after training people forget what your showed them. So make sure you send them away with handouts or create a screencast or something they can refer to post-training.
3. Clearly illustrate benefit of the change to both staff and librarians, but also library users.
   In my career, I’ve dealt with several folks who accused me of implementing new systems simply for the sake of change itself or “cool tech”. To deal with this issue, you need to clearly articulate the benefit that the technology and change will have to staff and the library users.
4. Build a loyal set of followers
   One of the best ways to get by in when implementing a new technology or change is to get a group of people who are behind it and can help you get the word out and provide support. Nothing is better than having one colleague tell another that something is “easy” and that they can help another colleague. You can’t beat good internal PR.
5. Get the support of the powers that be
   When you implement a new system you need your boss to have your back and the administration to be behind the change/technology. Otherwise, it will go nowhere. Having administration provide incentives for people to come along is a big plus. At minimum you need staff and librarians to know that the change isn’t your personal whim and that staff are expected by their boss to use the new technology.

Change, especially technology-drive change, is hard. I’ve never had an experience with change where there wasn’t some resistance. I understand people’s frustration and discomfort. I work with technology every day and sometime I just wish that stuff would stay predictable for a little bit. Currently, I’m hip-deep in new stuff that is putting me WAY outside my comfort level. I’m frustrated, annoyed, and a little scared that I won’t be able to learn how to work with this new stuff but eventually the pieces will come together and it will be alright. I find it helpful when I’m working with people on implementing a new technology, to remember this kind of experience, because it helps me be in their shoes and as a result be able to deal with them more effectively.