Face it, change is hard
A Gartner Study in 2025 on ERP strategies identified 'Inadequate Change Management' as the leading cause of ERP implementation failures. Let's talk about why and what you can do about it BEFORE your organization becomes another statistic. In this posting I'll talk about three main points, the neuroscience of change, loss of competence and identity, and the perceived loss of control. I'll follow with some steps you can take now to mitigate these issues and improve your implementation outcomes.
Your Brain Doesn't Like Change
If you are like most people, you go through cycles of trying to make changes in your life only to see them lose steam as time goes on. I recently went to Italy on a pilgrimage. In preparation, I spent hours working on the Pimsleur app trying to get the basics of the language down. When I got back, I was committed to continuing with the language. How many additional lessons have I done? You get the point. New Year's resolutions, your new exercise plan, your new prayer routine... we humans struggle with long-term change, and ERP implementations are especially difficult.
It turns out our brains thrive on predictability. This allows our brains to run efficiently and conserve mental energy. When change is introduced, our prefrontal cortex jumps into action to evaluate what is different and help with decision making. So not only is our cruise control bumped off, but our amygdala says, "hey, what's going on here?" and starts to trigger stress emotions like anxiety or fear. So how do we make our basal ganglia happy again and get these changes on track?
Losing Your Identity and Place in the Unspoken Org Chart
ERP disrupts informal power structures. Do you have any of these in your company?
- The Gatekeeper - Controls access to data and reports everyone needs. ERP democratizes data.
- The Workaround Wizard - Built the spreadsheets that run the department. ERP replaces those.
- The Power User - Respected because they know the system's quirks. ERP is new to everyone.
Remember that many people tie their identities up with what they do and what their job titles are. An ERP implementation threatens that identity because each person's competence clock is reset to zero, tribal knowledge becomes less relevant, and influence decreases. In an implementation, these insecurities slow decision making down and often lead to non-value-added debate and worse, customization to align the new technology to the process they are most comfortable with. Remember that many team members are silently grieving. It is hard to get them excited at first about the project because they are focused on the loss of their status, purpose, and relevance.
Uncertainty drives Anxiety
Employees often show resistance because they lack clarity about what a major transformation like an ERP means for them personally, not because they don't understand and agree with the reasons for the change. Employees often wonder: will my job change? will my role become obsolete? am I working myself out of a job?
This anxiety impacts work performance by interfering with short term memory and it makes the prefrontal cortex less good at complex reasoning and focus. At the time those skills are needed the most, their cognitive performance isn't at its best. Anxiety can make team members more risk averse and can shift attention to avoiding mistakes instead of achieving goals. If you hear fewer questions being asked, start to see more team members missing project meetings, or pick up on negative comments at the water cooler, these are symptoms of anxiety. It is important that you counter these anxieties with recognition and support, not frustration and reprimand. Colin Powell had an insightful quote along these lines; "The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Baby Steps; We'll Get Though This
Having a project champion with strong emotional intelligence and supportive senior leadership is really important to overcome these obstacles. Here are some strategies, ordered by priority, to mitigate the impacts of these fully human, fully natural, responses to change:
- Create Psychological Safety
- Acknowledge these issues in an all-staff meeting(s). Address the unspoken questions head-on because they won't always get asked. Allow for honest Q&A and invite staff to schedule one on ones. Follow up with an e-mail re-emphasizing your main points on why change is necessary, what the vision looks like when complete, and reiterating what feelings and anxieties are expected. Address any common themes from the employee meetings. This sets the tone early and shows leadership and support. Don't forget to highlight what isn't changing, your core values and commitment to your customers and employees.
- Communicate Frequently
- Share the project status, timelines, decisions, and project changes even when the answers are incomplete. Silence causes employees' minds to wander and fuels the rumor mill. Predictability lowers anxiety, so set up an update cadence and keep it sacred. It is important to involve employees in designing the future and these communication sessions support that. Buy in = user adoption.
- Practice, Practice, Practice
- Because we know that excessive use of the prefrontal cortex is taxing and creates project fatigue, your team needs to do enough transactions in the test environment so that they begin to feel competent. I can't tell you how many software pilots I've gone into with hardly any transaction history in the database from client team members. There needs to be structure and accountability around this. Help team members by shifting low skilled tasks to other positions while the implementation is going on. Have your internal PM review activity weekly in the internal status meeting and leverage leadership where necessary to provide the carrot and when necessary, the stick.
Employees need to hear they are not expected to become someone different; they are expected to learn and apply their strengths in the new ERP the company needs to remain technologically competitive.
