Many improvement activities stall, or even fail, due to unforeseen human factors. No one will ever deny the need for change, but why has it historically been so difficult to translate important organizational initiatives into significant action? Humans being humans, logic isn't always persuasive! Any change, even beneficial, will be fiercely resisted until the culture inherently examines and processes what it perceives as potential threats to its need for predictability.

Today's "bigger... better... faster... more... now!" society has also resulted in people feeling out of control in their lives. There are rising levels of workplace defensiveness and "finger-pointing" when things go wrong that is affecting both coworker and customer relationships.

Good organizations will recognize this and help to channel all this emotion into achieving organizational goals and individual success through:

• Motivating themselves and coworkers to "own" their circumstances and talk about them truthfully,
• Developing zero tolerance for "blame" and "victim" ("It's not my fault!") mentalities,
• Realizing "the only person you can change and speak for is yourself,"
• Managing with the mindset "I'd rather be effective than just right…How can I change so as to get other people to change?"

• Understand and deal with the frustratingly difficult, but, alas, natural, process of personal growth and behavior transformation,
• Apply Morris Massey's "values analysis" to recognize areas within themselves needing growth,
• Apply the Franklin "Reality Model" to take healthy "control" of work lives by accepting personal responsibility to change behaviors that would not be beneficial to the organization over time,
• Facilitate emotionally loaded group situations by expressing positive feelings, communicating negative ones, letting all involved "save face," and motivating a constructive group solution to the problem.

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