Seventy-nine percent of teams score low in a behavioral characteristic known as the “Need for Variety and Change”. If your team sometimes feels stuck in the status quo, this might explain why. 

This characteristic is crucial for progress because it is what helps spur people and organizations to be thinking about the next big way to innovate or expand. However, it needs to be present in the right doses. An excessive need for change can cause employees to act restlessly and recklessly, sapping resources and adding more stress. 

The best way to determine if your team is stuck in place because of a lack of need for change is to conduct an analysis. More on that in a minute! First, let’s look at some ways to boost the need for change in a team.

Signs That Your Team Has a Low Need for Change

Does it seem like your team continues to do things the same way largely because that’s how it has “always been done.” A lack of need for change can leave teams stuck in familiar patterns that have outgrown their usefulness. Other signs include:

• Ideas being met with resistance.
• Groupthink stifles alternate perspectives.
• The desire to be challenged is lacking.
• The team is acting in rote patterns.

Lack of need for change puts a team in the position of continuing behaviors and processes out of a desire to avoid discomfort. For an organization, this can dramatically hinder opportunities to innovate and grow. It also puts a team or company in a defensive position instead of an innovative position because lack of desire for change ultimately leads to competitors getting the advantage.

How to Inspire the Need for Change

For managers, there are many ways to cultivate a need for change. While it’s important to note that this is a behavioral characteristic that people generally either veer toward or against, that’s not always the case. Some team members may be consciously stifling the need for change because they don’t feel that they are in an environment that supports this drive. They may fear that being a change-driven person in their current role could agitate people or ruffle feathers. Here are some ways to make a team feel empowered to embrace desire for change:

• Conduct an analysis of behavioral traits using an assessment such as the Teamalytics 360 to see where “need for change” ranks.
• Create a company charter that positions your company as a leader in change and innovation.
• Empower team members to suggest changes to processes or procedures that they feel would enhance the way things are done.
• Break the association between change and discomfort. This can be done by implementing some positive changes that benefit all team members. By making change a positive word in your company, you can take away fear or discomfort associated with change. This will help make team members who do actually possess an inherent desire for change feel confident enough to begin implementing changes when they feel they are necessary.

You’re not alone if your team is struggling from a lack of desire for change. In 2023, Teamalytics published the results of 1,484 team assessments that ranked a variety of risk areas. As mentioned earlier, 79% scored at risk of being too low on their Need for Variety and Change. 

In this constantly changing economy where norms and expectations are shifting at dizzying speeds, it’s more important than ever to be able to tap into and nurture positive behavioral traits. That’s why Teamalytics just put out a new FREE e-book for leadership teams that addresses the two keys to an engaged workforce. 

Download “CREATING CUTTING EDGE COMPANY CULTURE IN A WORK FROM HOME WORLD” today to get ahead of your organization’s low need for change!