Can You Assess Whether the Change Will Succeed: Before You Get Started?

If we had a crystal ball, looking into the future, we would of course not have started projects that eventually turn out not to succeed. Alas, such devices are not part of the lawyer manager's common toolkit, so consider this: is the risk of failure the reason you have not started on the change project you secretly think is needed? Will your management provide “air cover” to fend off escalations caused by change resistance or fear? Would you be a little more courageous if you had a good way of assessing the likelihood of success before you started the project? Well, you are not alone, but there is help.

D*V*F > R

Now, before you totally freak out and reach for the algebra book, don't worry. It is not nearly as complex as it reads, and you do not need much math knowledge to put it to practical use. Let's face it: lawyers are mostly not great mathematicians and I'm certainly no exception, but I have found it very helpful. Gleicher's formula is in fact fascinatingly simple, so stay with me.

D is the Dissatisfaction with the current situation

V is the Vision of how the change will improve things

F is the First Steps towards the Vision

R is Resistance to change.

Hence, the D*V*F>R formula roughly means that the combination of your Vision of how things will improve, the team's dissatisfaction with the current situation and the First Steps you can offer up—in aggregate—needs to be greater than the team's inherent resistance to change. If it is not, your project will likely succumb to the change resistance and fail.

The formula for change's origin is usually credited David Gleicher, while he was working at consulting firm Arthur D. Little in the early 1960s, and later refined by Kathie Dannemiller in the 1980s.2

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