Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • July 13, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal 21 OPINION & COMMENTARY BIZ BOOKS How to encourage change in a resistant workplace By Jim Pawlak The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind" by Jonah Berger (Simon & Schus- ter, $26.99). To paraphrase Isaac Newton: "A person in motion tends to stay in motion, while a person at rest tends to stay at rest." Change requires motion, not rest. People parked in their "we've always done it this way" comfort zone resist change. Why? Inertia. It's easier to do what they've al- ways done. How do you get them to change? Pushing doesn't work well because they go on defense; they counter your new information with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." So, what does? Removing their barriers. How? "Rather than starting to persuade, start by understanding." The first thing to understand: Your outcome isn't their current goal. Listen to them; find out their perspective. By letting them talk, you gain information that you can weave in to ultimately make your point. Empathize. Ask about situa- tions where they've learned from do- ing things differently and doing different things. Mirror by describing your similar situations, what you learned and how others helped you improve your outcomes. Emphasiz- ing "we" throughout the conversation builds trust, which opens the door to mutually learning some- thing new. How do you address the reluc- tance to maintain the status quo (i.e. if it ain't broke)? Think in terms of "switching costs." On the surface, one would think that switching depends solely upon the advantages outweighing the disadvantages by more than just a little. Not so. The problem and cost of doing nothing boils below the surface. Discussing the cost of inaction helps people understand the status quo's down- side. That discussion should focus on what the person stands to lose if there's no change. "Chunking the change" helps remove resistance, too. Break big changes into chunks; implement piece by piece. Doing so plays into a person's "acceptable range of change." It also removes some of the uncertainty that big change brings. The bottom line: Implementing change involves helping people see what's in it for them. Jim Pawlak EDITOR'S TAKE Lessons to be learned from Ideanomics deal I t was July 2018, and Bruno Wu was a few minutes late for an interview with Hartford Business Journal at public relations firm Sullivan & LeShane's office, across the street from the state Capitol. When he finally arrived, Wu — then executive chairman and CEO of Seven Stars Cloud Group, now Ideanomics — didn't look like a billionaire entrepre- neur. He was dressed casually in a grease-stained navy blue polo shirt, high in spirit and laughing often. He pointed out a muffin he ate early in the morning left the mark on his shirt. During an hour-long interview Wu talked about how blockchain technolo- gies and his company would revolutionize the financial services industry, particularly how businesses and individuals obtain and access credit, and how Ideanomics' planned $400-million Fintech Village in West Hartford would become "the world's leading fintech hub." It was the first and only in-person interview my colleague Matt Pilon and I had with Wu, now Ideanomics' chairman, and we came away from it with many more questions than answers. In fact, we never wrote a story based off that interview because we didn't know what to make of Wu or his business, which at the time was partnering with, investing in, and growing a portfolio of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology companies. Privately, we had serious doubts about the project — backed by a $10-million incentive deal offered by then Gov. Dannel P. Malloy — becoming a reality. It was difficult to parse out the company's business model, and how it would attract start- ups and entrepreneurs from across the globe to UConn's former suburban campus. Fast-forward to today and the project appears all but dead, after the company in March declared Fintech Village a "non-core asset" that it was looking to divest. More recently, the town of West Hartford inked a right-of-first-refusal agreement with Ideanom- ics to potentially take back the 58-acre property located on Asylum Street, another sign the proj- ect isn't likely moving forward. Meantime, short sellers have accused the com- pany of being a fraud and misleading investors. Ideanomics, whose main business is now in electric vehicle sales, refuted those claims, which, to be fair, were brought by parties with a vested interest in seeing the company's stock price tank. This column isn't meant to place blame on pub- lic officials who backed the company and project. However, we should learn from it. And it reiter- ates a point I've been making for years, that Mal- loy's economic-development strategy of pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into economic incentives for businesses and developers is a wrong-minded and costly policy that ultimately yields questionable economic returns. Malloy promised Ideanomics up to $10 million in incentives under his First Five Plus program. How- ever, the company never began construction of its proposed campus — it only tore down buildings — which meant it couldn't access any of the funds. Taxpayers were lucky because in many other deals, Malloy provided companies up-front incen- tives that weren't always returned when firms didn't live up to their promises. Gov. Ned Lamont, who was skeptical of Idean- omics early on, has rightly decided to pivot away from Malloy's strategy. His administration, led by Department of Economic and Community Devel- opment Commissioner David Lehman, wants to move toward a performance-based, "earn-as-you- go" system, meaning employers won't reap state incentives until they create a certain number of jobs or make a certain level of investment. Lehman was planning to get the state legis- lature to sign off on that new policy during the 2020 legislative session, but that didn't happen as the state Capitol shut down in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has obviously changed the economic landscape and it could spur lawmakers to want to return to Malloy-era incentives to stimulate the economy and help small businesses. That would be a mistake. Connecticut doesn't have the money to do any widescale stimulus program that would have meaningful economic impact. In- stead, our best bet is to pressure Congress to make more aid available to small businesses and avoid tax hikes to deal with expected budget shortfalls. In January, when the next regular legislative session begins, Lamont and lawmakers should commit to a pay-as-you-go system and stop sup- porting large-scale development deals that turn out to be more fantasy than reality. Greg Bordonaro, Editor

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