Change is a necessary part of organisational life for without it, we cannot move forward. Unfortunately, many of these change initiatives fail, usually because of a lack of commitment to the change rather than the initiative itself. Gaining such commitment is a key challenge for any leader, but is a vital part of creating change that lasts.
What does organisational commitment look like? Researchers suggest that organisational commitment in the context of change has the following elements:
- Commitment to the goals and values of the organisation.
- Effort exerted on behalf of the organisation.
- Psychological alignment with, or attachment to, the change.
However, not all commitment is created equal. There are actually three identified types of organisational commitment:
Affective commitment – emotional attachment. Think of this as ‘buy-in’, where it is driven buy a strong belief in the organisation and a desire to remain.
Continuance commitment – economic attachment. This is driven by the ‘sunk costs’ concept, where a person stays with the organisation because it would be too disruptive to their life to leave.
Normative commitment – moral attachment. This is driven out of a sense of obligation and guilt at the thought of leaving.
Feeding into commitment is the acceptance of the change. Herbert Kelman suggests there are three levels of acceptance, which produce differing levels of attitudinal and behavioural changes:
- Compliance: People accept the influence to gain favourable outcomes and avoid unfavourable ones. Summarised as a change in behaviour.
- Identification: People accept the influence to preserve a relationship, not because of the content. Summarised as a change in feelings.
- Internalisation: People adopt the desired behaviours because the ideas and arguments within the message are in line with their own belief systems. Summarised as a change in the underlying attitudes of individuals.
Why are these levels important? Because is helps distinguish whether your people are acting out of simple obedience, or because they have bought into the vision and are internally committed to making it happen with you. External obedience only lasts as long as there is external surveillance to oversee it. Internalisation remains even in the absence of external surveillance, because the individual possesses the internal motivation to work towards the vision. It will mean you spend more time feeding into the change process in the early stages, but less time policing behaviour in the long-term.
While commitment driven out of obligation will produce short term results in the form of compliance, this is not sustainable. To maximise the long-term success of changes, focus on gaining the emotional commitment that will lead to a deep and continuing internal motivation.