7 minutes
How change usually fails here Initiative fatigue, late partners, and unnamed loss are patterns, not personalities.
What you’ll be able to do Identify the practical implication of “How change usually fails here” and apply it to one live DHS decision connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should happen before the work is locked? Document a next step for How change usually fails here: Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed. The memo can be accurate and still fail. Accuracy without a path is still a drop. How the past shows up on Monday Human services staff have lived through stacked initiatives: new eligibility rules, new systems, new vendors, new equity commitments, new reporting, often with the old work still on their desk. When leaders say “this one is different,” people hear a pattern, not a promise. That skepticism is often earned.
You do not need a history degree. You do need to stop diagnosing the pattern as “they don’t like change.”
In this lesson Place common failure modes in working order.
Separate change (the event) from transition (the human gap).
See why counties, Tribal Nations, and the public are not a last chapter.
Reject “we already told them” as proof that they could act.
People are not tired of change. They are tired of being the last to know and the first to absorb it.
A working timeline of ideas — used as evidence These dates are not a trivia quiz. They are answers to “who already named this problem?”
Ideas that still bind the work 1991 — Bridges: change vs. transition The event can be scheduled. The inner ending, gap, and beginning cannot. Leaders who skip the ending get shadow systems — the old way kept alive in a folder.
1995 — Kotter: why transformations fail Public evidence, not our playbook: under-communicating, skipping a coalition, declaring victory early. If your plan has one email and a training video, you are in that evidence.
2000s — ADKAR as a common language Awareness and desire are not created by a slide. They describe whether someone can even see the change and whether they have a reason to move. Treat the words as a check, not a product to buy.
Ongoing — County-supervised, state-administered work Minnesota human services often moves through 87 counties and Tribal partners. A St. Paul decision that ignores local procedure is not a rollout. It is a collision scheduled in advance.
2014–now — Psychological safety as an operating condition People will not name the hole in your plan if the last person who did that paid for it. Edmondson’s research is evidence: silence is a design outcome.
Now — Stacked initiatives after crisis years Pandemic rules, system replacements, budget shocks, and equity commitments landed on the same desks. Sequence is a leadership duty. “Everything is priority one” is how nothing is.
Failure modes you will recognize The training-as-engagement trap Training teaches a tool. It does not repair a decision people did not get to influence. If the only “engagement” is a required module after go-live, you are teaching compliance, not bringing people along.
The coalition of people already in the room A steering committee of central office leads will miss the counter, the night shift, the county, and the Tribal program. Empty chairs are data.
Declaring victory at launch Launch is the start of the gap, not the end of the work. The first two weeks of tickets, workarounds, and public confusion are the real report.
Naming people instead of the pattern “They are change-resistant” is often a way to avoid saying “we designed this without them.” Ask what they are protecting: a client, a legal duty, a workaround that actually serves.
If the public is your briefing channel for staff, the sequence is backwards. From protest to procedure — a different kind of history Communities that use DHS programs have already lived through changes they did not choose: rule cuts, form changes, closed offices, new portals. When staff feel done-to, they are tasting a smaller version of what the public already knows. Humility here is accuracy, not guilt theater.
What each era still asks of a DHS leader Endings Sequence Debt Power
What stops? Who loved the old way because it protected a client or a legal duty? Say it out loud. Unnamed endings become sabotage, then we call it culture.
Who must be able to act before the public does? Supervisors, then staff who meet the public, then partners, then notices. Invert that order and you donate your credibility.
If the last three rollouts were late, confusing, or punitive, this one starts in a hole. Extra time and extra honesty are not softness. They are the cost of prior design.
Who can say no? Union contracts, Tribal sovereignty, federal rules, and county capacity are not “noise.” They are the field you are playing on.
Facts leaders should keep Change vs. transition
Change is the event (new form, new boss, new system). Transition is the inner ending, gap, and beginning. You can calendar the first. You have to lead the second.
Under-communication
Leaders who live in the change for months forget that staff met it this morning. One email is not a campaign. Repeating is not nagging if the work is new.
Stacked work
The new change arrives on top of the old change that never finished. Ask what you will stop, delay, or staff up — or you are asking for unpaid overtime as a strategy.
Silence is a finding
A quiet staff meeting after a big announcement is not buy-in. It may be fear, exhaustion, or people waiting to see if you mean it.
Persistent pattern Every era added a model. Agencies often responded by hiring a change manager. Change managers matter. The pattern that fails is using them as a place to park the sponsor’s job while the decision stays closed.
Which failure is this? The old report is still required “in case we still need it,” plus the new dashboard.
Choose a category Skipped ending Backwards sequence Stacked initiatives Clients arrive with a letter staff have not seen.
Choose a category Skipped ending Backwards sequence Stacked initiatives Three go-lives in one quarter, same unit, no work taken off the plate.
Choose a category Skipped ending Backwards sequence Stacked initiatives A reorg chart posts before anyone says what job is ending.
Choose a category Skipped ending Backwards sequence Stacked initiatives A press call happens the same hour supervisors get the FAQ.
Choose a category Skipped ending Backwards sequence Stacked initiatives Check matches Reset Next: the evidence of who is in the room — and who finds out later.
Put this lesson to work What you can change You control whether how change usually fails here changes a live DHS process connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along or remains information on a page.
What to watch for The team completes the learning, keeps the same default, assigns no owner, and never checks who carries the burden.
Your next step Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Carry this forward Initiative fatigue, late partners, and unnamed loss are patterns, not personalities.
You control whether how change usually fails here changes a live DHS process connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along or remains information on a page.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Completion is shown by a scenario decision, a knowledge-check response, a completed sort and a saved one-minute commitment.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
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