Everything Changes. The way we manage change must also change.
That change is being pioneered by one doctor, a practitioner & academic working in London, who has formulated a new startup worthy of sharing with the world. It is called, SCARED SO WHAT.
For just shy of one hundred years we have had multiple change models that have been used throughout organizations, universities, businesses, governments, and communities, to drive change management processes through on behalf of its people. In the same token, the academic literature illustrating the abundance of failures surrounding these change efforts could stretch across the globe.
Dr Grant Van Ulbrich went back to university in his forties and asserted in his master’s course on leading transformation that the existing change models were not designed nor intended to be used by people for their own instances of change. In fact, the models themselves are prescriptive in portraying that people will experience a myriad of actions that can include shock and anger or change resistance. The majority outcomes of these models are that people will end up magically accepting the change. For Grant, he just could not accept that as fact based on his lived experiences.
“Where is the model for the individual? Grant asked. He illustrated that these organizational change models were built for use within organizations ON people – not FOR people. He continued in saying that “people can accept change, face confusion or uncertainty about the change, and they can flat out reject change. These models do not account for individual rejection.” He further illustrates that one can simply break an organizational change model when you ask this simple question of, what happens if the person rejects the change? One cannot simply force the rest of the model on them.
So much of organizational change ends up in failure, so why do we continue to use methodologies without being inclusive of the individual and their needs? As leaders, Dr Grant argues, that we should protect the most invested asset of any organization and learn how to facilitate inclusive change management for all employees in their care. When using the SCARED SO WHAT methodology and app technology as a first step, we gain an understanding of where all our people are. Only then, once all people have been included in the change process, an organizational change model can be used. It is at this stage one would be leading transformationally knowing where all their people stand.
Does SCARED SO WHAT work? His customers say resoundingly yes. He and his organization were able to assess the validity of the model during the global pandemic with the SCARED quiz and the SO WHAT action plan system. The research and evidence in using this for his global sales team and customer base, confirmed the methodology worked for all age types from children as young as fourteen and up. For that, Grant earned his master’s degree with highest honour of a distinction. But he did not stop there as he continued his research into a doctoral program.
Dr Grant is an accredited sales transformation leader, an author, a certified transformation coach, and a TEDx speaker with over one million views in just a few short months since the release on YouTube. He has started up SCARED SO WHAT LTD in London and has packaged the model into an app to allow people to manage personal change wherever they are. Licensed to organizations, this gives them the ability to make change inclusive and successful with valuable digital data insight and the first deep dive into organizational change management.
Dr Grant’s personal and professional story is not the norm. A Naval veteran, twice homeless, and a survivor of an accident that nearly claimed his life, he did not just resist change, he broke and created the new model for us all to use.
Watch Dr Grant’s TEDx talk, get the app, his books, and even participate in his courses. You will want to connect and follow him at https://www.scaredsowhat.com