8 Principles in progress-focused change

Progress-focused principles and techniques are not only useful in individual conversations and team facilitation processes but also in facilitating organizational change. Here are a few principles I propose for organizational change.

1. Share decision making / work as participatively as possible: change is acceptable when people feel that they can (at least partly) influence or even determine what the change is and how it is shaped. 
2. Provide clear rationales: explain goals, rules and decisions clearly (and as frequently as the situation requires). People can identify more easily with the change when they understand what the importance and expected benefits of the change will be. 
3. Use the progress-principle: the factor which may be most motivational in work is the feeling of making progress in meaningful work. (see 5 tips on how to harness this principle). 
4. Support basic psychological needs: acknowledge and support people's need for autonomy, competence and relatedness in any way you can think of. 
5. Do what works: identify and apply what works in your context. Change will be more successful when people can use what is based on their own successful experience in their own context. 
6. Work with the individual's perspective: change is more likely to succeed when a results focus is always combined with a sensitivity to the perspective of individuals involved in the change process. 
7. Use a test and learn approach: Work with specific short term goals. This will not only make it easier to get started but also to adjust and refine your approach as you go (read example).  
8. Create congruence between content and process: the change will be more credible when the way the change process is designed fits well with what you want to achieve (read example).