I come from an Italian family. My mom, the undisputed matriarch of the family, was born in Italy and takes great pride in sharing her cultural heritage with my family, often in the form of delicious Italian food. Growing up, this made dinnertime a highlight of the day, as it was a golden opportunity to gorge on perfectly al dente pasta of every shape and size. All of this came to a screeching halt the day I decided to start a low-carbohydrate diet. 

My mom’s initial reaction was to assume I was joking. When I gently informed her that I was being earnest, her emotions shifted to stunned disbelief and eventually to polite indignation. And that’s when the questions started. “Why are you doing this?” “What I am supposed to cook?” “What kind of Italian are you?” I haphazardly attempted to navigate these questions, offering half-baked (no pun intended) defenses for my decision. But the damage was done and my mom was already dug in to her position: if I wanted a low-carb meal, I was going to have to find it elsewhere.

So what did I do wrong? How could I have approached this situation differently and reached a mutually beneficial understanding with my mom? Change management best practices would indicate that I should have done the following:

1. Conduct a current-state assessment, highlighting potential obstacles to change, and identifying change agents to help promote the cause. A huge obstacle to change was what my mom would cook if pasta were off-limits. I had no answer for this at the time, but if I had done my homework, I would’ve pointed her to spaghetti squash (a vegetable that has a pasta-like look and feel, only with none of the simple carbs). My dad, who was interested in keeping his blood sugar down at the time, would’ve been a great change agent to help me bring this idea to fruition. 
2. Enact the change using a wide variety of engagement techniques to ensure that the change sticks. I could’ve offered to help cook some low-carb recipes, thus scoring “quality time points” and getting the food that I wanted. A more passive tactic would’ve been to simply buy my mom a low-carb cooking recipe book, but, like any household tool or appliance (or, worse, self-improvement item) given as a gift, that could’ve easily backfired.
3. Measure the success of the change and publicize the positive results.  This could've included bragging about weight loss, complimenting the deliciousness of the meals, and generally showing appreciation for her willingness to accommodate my fanciful notions of healthy eating.

This goes to show that solid change management tactics can be useful in all sorts of situations, especially when the proposed change is a truly foundational shift, like the one described above.

At organizations seeking to take advantage of the proven benefits of using data and analytics to make decisions, change management challenges are one of the most frequently reported hurdles to becoming data driven. Fortunately, APQC’s new best practice report, Change Management Practices for Establishing a Data-driven Culture, presents the steps necessary to ensure that your organization is able to successfully complete the journey from intuition-based to data-driven decision making.

Change can be tough, but at least your boss probably isn’t going to threaten to call your grandmother when you propose this one. 

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