‘Tech fearers’ – You may not have heard this term before but it has a very commonplace within the technology industry. It’s refers to people within an organisation who inhibit serious progress by fearing technology.

They ultimately believe that the need for change is not necessary because the way things operate at this point in time are ‘fine’. They generally don’t see the benefits of organisational change so will sometimes sabotage progress to preserve their own comfort.

Not to sound dramatic, but these people can be dangerous people within an organisation.

To achieve positive change, you need the people within your organisation to come along with you. They need to be the champions of change. They need to drive the success of projects to ultimately make their own environments easier in the future.

This is a progressive mindset and the tech fearers don’t possess these qualities…yet.

Why will you lose if you have tech fearers in your team?

Technology is all about helping you become more profitable and competitive whilst ultimately trying to make life easier for your employees. It’s about spending a little (time and money) now to achieve massive results in efficiency. Here’s a scenario of a real-world client that perfectly illustrates this:

Recently, we did an estimating demo for a Subcontractor. In the space of about 2 minutes we we got every single item we needed listed on the screen through the use of templates and a tech centric approach. One of the estimators in the room then said that he prefers start with a blank page and type each individual component in. The rest of his colleagues then looked at him and after seeing how quickly we did it, said to him: ‘Why would you do that when you can do this. They are now a client and flying through their estimates in less than half the time.

A tech fearer will try and stop these efficiencies from being achieved because they ‘like the way things operate now’.

So what can you do?

#1 – The big one, is to leave no employees behind. Your employees need to feel part of the process. They need to feel like they are a major stakeholder in the new implementation and that their ideas have been put into this process.

They need to feel like they are going to help create meaningful change. If they have skin in the game, then they have commitment to the process.

#2 – Every person in the change management process needs to feel like they have an understanding for when they are succeeding or failing. Employees who are positively working with the change should see rewards and recognition and vice versa for those who are lagging behind and hindering the process.

#3 – Managers and key decision makers need to demonstrate what the big picture is to employees. The more everyone understands as to how the change is going to make their lives easier as well as make the business more profitable and efficient, then they will feel like that they have a role to play in achieving the big picture goal.

#4 – Deal with the naysayers, quickly. With most implementations, we see there are generally a few hesitant individuals who liked the way things operated before. This is understandable, but continued resistance without any interjections from management can really de-rail and damage the progress of the change.

Organisations need to know when to say enough is enough. If you wait too long, employees can gain a powerful opportunity to create damage on your goals. This damage comes in the form of not following new process management protocols and persuading others to do the same.

Be patient, but also persistent. Remember the goals you set and why you are doing this. You need to keep your goal in mind whilst also using the strategies above to change their mindset and create meaningful change.