Change is everywhere. And never has adapting to this rapid change been more crucial for any organization’s competitive advantage than it is today. Whether it’s driving innovation, increasing diversity, expanding a business to global markets or integrating the power of artificial intelligence (AI), the ability to survive and thrive amidst our ever-evolving landscape will depend on the speed and ease by which you can embrace “the new.”

When individuals and organizations move from the traditionally passive responses to change (e.g., resisting, managing, navigating) to instead more ambitious and proactive responses (e.g., committing, embracing) that they can enjoy a tremendous performance advantage.

For this to happen, the fundamental mindset needs to shift from “change is happening to me” to “change is happening for me.” And because we’re only human, facilitating this shift might take some healthy training. Change adapters typically respond by:

• Avoiding the change.
• Accepting the change.
• Running toward the change.

The first group thinks of change as an unknown monster lurking in the darkness.  Always stalking them — ready to expose their vulnerabilities and fears.  So, they run. But the longer they run, the bigger the monster gets.

The second group thinks of change as something they’ll keep up with. They’ll ebb and flow as needed to incorporate any new change into their routines. The faster the change, the faster they run to stay on the leading edge.

The third group sees change coming over the horizon and run right at it — meeting it before it sweeps them up. They are the change enthusiasts who see all new initiatives as an opportunity to grow and improve some aspect of their self or work.  They are inspired to meet and embrace the challenge of change because they see the potential for a great performance advantage.

As a CEO or leader in any industry, it’s clear why you would want to move more of your employees from the scared to bold. Obviously, you’ll never bring everyone along, but think of the potential impact and ripple effects within your business if you could inspire just a percentage of your population to capitalize on change.

The return on investment (ROI) of ridding your organization of the resistors and seeding it with the change enthusiasts could be huge. So, if you could train employees to this end, the question is how do you measure the business impact and ROI of this shift? Can we prove quantifiable increases in performance because employees are running at the change instead of away from it?

Measuring the 6 Levels of Training Impact: A Case Study

I recently completed a research study which measured the effectiveness of this type of training and the results were impressive.

To quantify the impact and ROI, we used a 6-Level approach:

For each level of impact, the results were as follows:

Level 1 — Questions were delivered right after the training and showed 100% of participants were engaged and satisfied with their learning experience.

Level 2 — We measured their knowledge increases from before to after the training in four core areas. These included things like:

• Recognizing emotional signals to change as opportunities.
• Seeing change as fuel for higher performance.
• Creating action plans to embrace and advocate for change.

Results showed 98% of participants acquired new and valuable knowledge and the average increase in knowledge from before to after was 38%.

Level 3 — Participants were assessed for on-the-job improvements in six specific change behaviors, including things like:

• Assessing the options and opportunities each change situation may bring.
• Checking in with others to see how they are managing the change.

These behaviors were measured 90+ days after training. The improvements over the three months post training were captured on a five-point scale ranging from “no improvement” to “exceptional improvement.” Key findings included:

• 90% of participants showed “some” to “exceptional improvement.”
• 67% of participants showed “strong” to “exceptional improvement” in the six key behaviors.

Level 4 — To isolate the impact of training on performance, we collected data on their increases in productivity and contributions over the post-training months as a percentage. Then, we adjusted the percentages of estimates for error by only factoring in the participants who had significant to exceptional behavior change on the job at Level 3. Our final results showed a 21% overall increase in productivity per participant, directly attributable to training.

Level 5 — To develop our ROI, we took the benefits (performance increases) identified at Level 4, monetized them and compared them to the fully loaded costs of training.  Overall, when the average % of performance increases across all participants were analyzed and monetized, we ended with a benefit of $5,040 per participant. We then compared this to the fully loaded cost of training (including hours away from the job) and ended with a 3-month ROI of 57% and an annualized ROI for each participant of 528%. This meant for every $1.00 invested in change training at the beginning of the year, they would be making back $6.28!

Level 6 — The primary question we wanted to answer was: Did follow-up coaching sessions on the job enhance the impact and ROI of the training? To conduct this analysis, we broke our sample into 2 groups: those who attended the coaching sessions post training and those who did not. Here we found those participants who attended the coaching sessions on how to apply the concepts from training had double the benefit and 4X greater ROI! These results suggest that business impact and ROI can increase dramatically when participants are provided post-training resources to help them practice and apply the change behaviors.

Here’s a snapshot of the results at all levels of impact:

The Bottom Line

Traditional change management approaches tend to set their sights on weathering or navigating a change storm, while newer approaches encourage people to be more proactive aka “storm-chasers.”

As we saw in this study, shifting the mindset and behaviors of employees to help them see every change as an opportunity to perform better, can yield some impressive ROIs for the business. And besides the benefits created for the organization’s bottom line, there’s also long-term lessons and benefits for every employee who can make the shift from someone who fears change, to someone who thrives in its midst.  With all the unprecedented change on the horizon, you have to ask yourself — would you rather spend your day running toward opportunities or running away from monsters?