In industries that are comprised of very intelligent people, change implementation can be particularly challenging. This stems in part from a perception that ideas about change management or organizational change are only relevant for groups of people with lower intelligence. The reality is that human beings in general, regardless of intelligence, benefit from the use of change management during change implementation. In reality, the smartest people stand to benefit most, rather than least, from change management.
A good example of this can be found in the petroleum industry. During well drilling operations, if the hole being drilled is more than a few degrees off of vertical it can become a serious problem. These non-vertical holes are referred to as inclined bore holes.
A solution to the physical problems of inclined bore holes was developed and published some time ago. Yet, at a recent conference of the Society for Petroleum Engineers, a paper was presented that discussed how the industry has largely failed to adopt the solution and was still relying on jury-rigged solutions in the field. In theory, a group of highly educated, intelligent engineers would have jumped onto the solution and sought to implement industry wide change implementation regarding inclined bore holes.
In practice, highly intelligent people tend to have very strong opinions regarding how things ought to be done. They will rely on their own judgments and experiences to define their approach to problems, at least in the absence of a widely acknowledged authority in the field. These strong opinions tend to undercut attempts at change implementation. This is especially true if the change does not conform to given person’s opinion on the subject.
If the change involves a group of such people, it can become an extremely slow process as each person tries to assert their opinion or perception. The use of change management best practices can help to overcome some of these problems by making the process a systematic effort instead of an attempt to convince individuals one by one.
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