With any change, there's going to be resistance, and Donges welcomes it.
"Not everybody on your team is going to support you," he says. "The easy ones to pick off are the ones that are absolutely overt about it, and they tell you they don't think it's the right thing. I celebrate those people. I absolutely see it as a positive when I see people resisting. I encourage them to openly talk about it, and I encourage them to state their reasons. That leads to some good communications."
The biggest challenge is dealing with those who aren't so vocal because you won't necessarily know who they are.
"The ones that are difficult are the ones that are going covert on you," Donges says.
Sometimes, you won't know they're resisting until someone flat out tells you.
"You just have to know you're going to have that," he says. "Don't try to subvert it. Just move forward. I encourage as much of the openness about the negativity because it forces more communication, which ultimately leads to people coming over to your side."
When you're trying to get someone on your side, present it as a chance for them to make a difference.
"You can look at the change as a crisis ... or you can look at it and say, ‘This is a tremendous opportunity - let's roll up our sleeves and get control of what we can take advantage of here and find the opportunity for the company or division,'" Donges says. "You have to get a mindset that that's what you're doing and become passionate about it."
Donges also warns that you have to accept the fact that not everyone will come to your side; however, if that resister leads a division or department, then you have to replace him or her.
"Put a new leader in - a change agent who's going to affect that - otherwise, you'll never make any progress if the leadership doesn't believe it," he says.
If you're unsure of whether someone is buying in or not, then look around and really observe.
"You get feedback," Donges says. "You get feedback from the performance of the division of the company. You get feedback from people who are leaving. You get turnover issues starting to develop. You get feedback from either their sales or their customer satisfaction numbers.
"Usually, it's the data that exposes them, but what kills them is you see that people are not participating or being part of the change initiative. It stands out like a sore thumb, but you have to see that. The data already validates what you probably already know and what you're hearing back from people."
This is particularly important for certain initiatives. For instance, one change Donges made was to Lane's technology system.
"If you look at the big scope of what you're trying to achieve, you have to have certain people on board," he says. "If you're going to change your technology platform, you better have your CIO on board. If he's not, your initiative is going to fail. You better understand - is he one of those who's resisting this?"
If he is, you have to determine if it's because he disagrees or if it's because he doesn't understand it.
"If there's just resistance because he doesn't understand, then that goes back to adding clarity everywhere you can in the communications process about why you're doing this, what are the goals, what are the costs associated with the change, what's going to happen to people, to computers, what are the issues that have to be dealt with, and just bring them out."