Posted on February 24th, 2023

Here is a great way to build the team and create short-term engagement in your organization. If your company just hired a change management consultant and you think that change may cause you extra work or distress or just pull you out of your current comfort zone, then here is an article that can help you: Focus on pinning all your negative team dynamics and problems on your change management consultant!!! This way you don’t have to challenge yourself, your peers, or your boss. Also, you can use the word ‘self-reflect’ without once doing it.

Pinning your organizational problems on the consultant is a fail-safe idea, as usually the consultant is on contract and is working with your team collaboratively but sparsely. You must remember that you, as an employee, definitely hold more power than the consultant, especially if the consultant is a woman, a woman of color, or belongs to a minority group. Most performative organizations these days focus on hiring a change management consultant from minority communities; this kills two birds with one stone for white supremacy: first, it aligns with the performative DEI stance, and second, when you fire the consultant, it confirms the systemic biases. Be confident that your majority white team will have enough bias in the room to get a war started against this person. There will be no questions asked; you are just handing the ‘white supremacy culture’ what it needs: “No change”. You, as an employee, will be applauded for pushing back against power. You will feel empowered for that time. There is also a chance that you might be seen as a leader. Remember, this is also how you can build bonds with white old-timers on your team, as they see you play for them for however short a time they allow you to be on the field. They see you helping them keep the system as it is and the only scrap sometimes need to throw at you is appreciation.

Here are the steps to throw off any change management initiative:

1. Do not share your clear commitment to the goal. Just act dumb as if you don’t know what’s happening; don’t take any ownership and say, “I am here only because the management wants me here”. Just act like you were just born and so did everybody else. Keep asking about the goal of the initiative.
   
   
2. Just don’t switch your zoom video on, give some excuse—you will find one—and speak nevertheless to make sure your voice is in the room. Speak about everything at once and nothing connected to the goal of the meeting. This will help kill time with ease, and no one would have achieved anything. Build on that time wasted frustration—pin it on the consultant’s facilitation skills, style, personality, presence, etc. Don’t overthink this, believe in yourself, you will find something.
   
   
3. Use the line "MMeet us where we are”. That is the ‘nowhere land’ enough to get the entire room lost.
   
   
4. Speak not only for yourself but also for others, to keep others in the room confused. Don’t follow group agreements; use your right for expression and keep things vague. Your aim is to use your voice vociferously—just do that! your goal is to create a dramatic disruption that makes everyone dizzy.
   
   
5. Use all the jargon that you think the consultant brings and instead of practicing what is agreed upon, just throw it at the consultant. Keep trying the consultant; ask them a hundred questions about the work that is happening. Keep asking.
   
   
6. Ask the consultant for research, data and proof every time. Make them work and let the scope creep into the scope of what the consultant thought they were working on. Have them groping for the ‘rope in the scope’!
   
   
7. Use micro-aggressions, micro-invalidations and micro-insults to keep the consultant second-guessing there own work and experience with their work. Keep it low-key—tiny paper-cuts. A consultant from minority social group identity might already have imposter syndrome; just keep doing the above and they will just blow their head off, It is just a matter of time. Just keep the pressure on and keep going in circles. Be patient; you are near your goal of thwarting a change management initiative. Believe in yourself—you can do this!
   
   
8. The minute the consultant talks about the dynamic they are seeing at play- call them angry, insensitive and rude, and fire them. Do that collectively as a team; this would be your first team alignment and team building! Go back to square one, and in a few days, bring in a new Change management consultant. Make this an organisational sport. It is a favorite pastime in many organisations for organisational team building and employee engagement!
   
   
9. In a few months, update your resume to include the change management initiative, curse your old organisation for inability to create change you were promised and change your job to another organisation for a change of scene!