Defined as "a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of technology or computers", each year this so called technophobia causes many people needless distress. Doctors have long recognized that some people have fears of technology for irrational reasons. It appears to be a protective mechanism raised by the subconscious mind after some sort of computer-related scare or trauma. The treatment is long and expensive and the condition itself is very costly to the patients as it prevents them from living normal lives in a society that greatly depends on technology.

Fortunately, these instances of technophobia as a medical condition are fairly rare. Most cases of common-place technophobia are related either to wrong presuppositions or technological failures caused by poor planning and other external issues, but not technology itself.

Real Life Examples
Many of our fears are driven by presuppositions. Imagine you’re walking a busy street and all of a sudden notice on the sidewalk a small device with wires, battery and a blinking LED. What would you think? That is exactly what caused wide-spread panic in early 2007 when such devices were found in Boston and other cities. It also caused temporary closure of roads, bridges and waterways. It turned out to be a creative marketing effort of Turner Broadcasting to promote their new adult cartoon “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”. The blinking LED was actually the image of the cartoon’s main character. A presumption driven mainly by the video industry (how many of us have actually seen a real bomb?) lead the bystanders to jump to the wrong conclusion.

At the end of 90s after investing over $60M, Bank of America abandoned a new computerized system which was supposed to be the most advanced in the banking industry. The California Department of Motor Vehicles abandoned a project to replace a 30-year old database system after investing $44M and 6 years of effort.

In each of these cases the major reason for scraping the project was inability of management to sell the long term vision to their staff and the resulting employees’ resistance to change. Many individuals, who were affected by the failing technology projects, inevitably developed a “sour taste” toward technological changes in general. I.e. now they have a presupposition that a change in technology is evil.

Status Quo vs. the Wind of Change Workplace Stability
Tom Pendergast, a researcher at Pepperdine University (California) identifies workplace stability as a situation in which both employees and management have a large emotional stake. Over time people develop balance between their job demands and personal lives which results in equilibrium or homeostasis. When a sudden change occurs, the created imbalance may hurt both job performance and personal life.

Change Management
Any organization has a set of developed procedures or norms. With bringing in a new technology some norms inevitably change. For example in a retail store, taking petty cash from the cash register for various reasons was a norm. Now, with introduction of a computerized point-of-sale system it is required that every cash payout is accounted for. Such change of the norm, if left unchecked, may cause resistance, stress and conflict. On the contrary, the same new procedure, if presented as the means to protect employees from being unfairly accused of stealing money from the till (which now becomes impossible as the computer tracks each cash drawer opening), the change of norm will win support and willful acceptance by both the management and the staff.

What Do We Really Fear?
The Collins English Dictionary defines technology as 'the total knowledge and skills available to any society for industry, art, science etc.' People generally feel uneasy about technology. We recognize that we are dependent on it but at the same time we feel in a vague way that we are in thrall to an alien influence.

William Reville, a scientist form University of Cork argues that when we fear technology we really do fear ourselves. Technology is not unnatural – it’s just an extension of ourselves designed to empower humans with the abilities to do things faster, better and in a more precise manner. Therefore, when we fear technology we actually fear our own inability to use it properly. Any technological advances of the past: steam engine, electricity, telephones, automobiles etc. were subject to the same harsh criticism as today’s advances in chemistry, genetics, physics, computers etc. Even in light of obvious advantages, our constant fear is that if misused, technology may harm rather than benefit.

Propensity for Change
And yet progress cannot be stopped. Some people welcome technology as soon as it becomes available while others may still be way behind. Researchers have shown that there are four major categories of business technology users regarding the speed of the technology adoption.

Early Adopters (13%)
These are the technology champions – the geeks and nerds as they are known to the uninitiated. They get new technology as soon as it shows on their radars. They pay a premium price to be ahead of everyone else. They run into all the caveats and bugs. They often fail miserably but the technology gets a chance to mature on their bones.

Early Majority (30%)
More cautious that the earlier adopters, these technology enthusiasts reap the most benefit because by using an already somewhat matured technology they get way ahead of their competition. They also help the technology to become more affordable and user-friendly to the general public.

Late Majority (40%)
The late majority is the conservatively-minded people who eventually get on board pushed by losing the business advantages, peer pressure and other business and social phenomena. They gain less immediate benefit than the early majority but are able to sustain and improve their operations and receive long term advantages in various areas of business. They get a mature technology: normally it means a higher upfront cost but lower ongoing/maintenance cost compared to the less mature technologies.

Laggards (17%)
People in this category get into technology only because they realize that otherwise they will lose their business. Often it is too late though. The technology is mistakenly seen as the last resort and as such is taken reluctantly, without proper planning and budgeting. The laggards are scared of technology and as they fear it they become superstitious about it. They come to think the technology is some sort of dark magic and as such will change their lives instantly the moment they sell their souls for it. The result is often a miserable failure. Only well planned and budgeted technology can help, and it is certainly should not be “the last resort”.

Strategy for Success
Tom Pendergast, the earlier cited researcher, offers the following steps to ensure success of a technology project.

Build on the Old
Both employees and management probably spent years in developing their workplace culture. A smart manager will recognize the coming changes and will build the new procedures on the foundation of the old and proven techniques. They will preserve value and build on existing competencies whenever possible.

For example, a new computerized POS system at the store will allow using handheld data collectors to do physical inventory counts. The essence of the physical count process will not change, however using technology will make it easier and faster. Sell to the employees an idea that the more frequent physical counts will lessen the shrinkage and as the store saves more money the employees will be given a bonus as the result of it. You will not find more enthusiastic adopters of the new technology after such a pitch, even if the adoption requires a little bit of learning.

Identify Rationale
The working culture of an employee is a mixture of formal, informal and technical norms. A change in any of these may bring significant emotional resistance. Without seeing the rationale behind the change some people may even start thinking that the it is designed specifically to make them feel uncomfortable and to drive them off the job.

A thoughtful manager will explain the rationale of the change, disclose the implications and picture the future advantages both to the company and to the employee herself. For example, with a new computer-based POS system the store now can use a customer loyalty program which rewards the customers based on their shopping activities. While the cashier is now required to type in the customer information (which to some may look like an annoying extra step), the loyalty program will bring the customer back more often. As the store makes now more money on the returning customers, the cashier will be given a pay raise accordingly - which is a great incentive.

Avoid the Unknown
When the nature of the coming change is unknown it creates uncertainty, fears and anxiety. Many people do not understand electronic black-box technologies. Lowering the level of anxiety will lessen the resistance to the new technology.

E.g. explaining that many people do not understand how a gasoline engine works but are still able to drive the cars brings the issue on the familiar ground. A computer is just a tool and does not differ much from a familiar TV set. Realizing that the buttons on the computer screen do not actually exist (we just “click” onto electronic images generated by the computer program by using a virtual pointer – which is also just an image on the screen), may certainly give a new perspective. This concept was put well in one of my favorite movies The Matrix: “Remember Neo – there is no spoon. When you realize that you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends – it is only yourself.”

Recognize the Influence of Others
Employees are not likely to adopt a change if they have no support from the peers and management. Employees, especially those who are unfamiliar with the complex technologies, need to be reassured that they will not be held responsible if something goes wrong. The biggest mistake the retail store manager or owner can make is to put an employee in charge of the new technology while not being personally intimately involved with the project. The employee will feel like a potential scapegoat from the beginning and that personal fear will stand on the way of the success.

The manager must know and be able to use the new system better than her employees. Related to the above categories of adopters, the management must be in the “Early Adopters” category within the organization. Though they will make most of the mistakes by themselves, it will help them to teach and guide the less experienced employees through the caveats and speed bumps of the new system. While some senior employees may be designated as the project “co-champions”, all team members must constantly feel full support of the entire organization from top down, especially from the “top”.

Provide Support
Talking about support, we need to mention support of a different sort: the technical support. None of the business technological systems become fully operational immediately after installation. It takes time and patience of both the management and staff to gradually learn to start using the computerized system at its full capacity. Therefore, ongoing technical support is a “necessary evil” so to say, which must be included in the cost estimation. Some systems are more user-friendly than the others but there still may be hidden obstacles which are difficult to overcome without having an expert handy. Budget properly for appropriate training and support options and you will avoid the most common pitfalls of the technology implementation projects.

Give Incentive
There may be someone on your staff who will lose due to the technology change. Changes sometimes lead to losing the job status or the jobs themselves. In the 1800s French workers were throwing their wooden shoes (sabots) into the machinery because of the fear of losing their jobs (sabotage). Attention to emotional and financial needs of those who are to lose is an essential and mandatory managerial task.

A wise manager will also give financial incentives to the employees who are the first to learn the new system or volunteer to co-champion the project and succeed in it. This will help to keep an upbeat morale during the technology implementation phase which may be a bit bumpy ride.

Implementation Checklist
Success in adaptation of the new technology will give better business results, greater productivity, improved bottom line and increased employee and customer satisfaction. But in order to be successful the managers must start with analyzing the new technology’s impact on the current organizational norms. Once the work culture is better understood and the issues addressed, the technological change may be implemented with less resistance and far greater chance of success. Here’s a checklist for technological change:

• Identify the organizational norms. Are there any formal/informal norms to be impacted? (Yes/Some/No)
• Will the new planned system build on the existing values and procedures? (Yes/Some/No)
• Identify who on your team will benefit from the change (Staff A, Staff B …)
• Identity who will lose because of the change (Staff C, Staff D, …)
• Have you developed a compensation plan for the losers (Yes/No)
• Do you have a strategy of “selling” the change to the employees? (Yes/Partially/No)
• Have you identified the (co-) champion of the new technology project? (Yes/No)
• Have you budgeted for employee training and support (Yes/Somewhat/No)

Conclusion

• Technology is knocking at the door and your standing in the ostrich position will not make it go away. Without technology automating business operations you face various disadvantages: from too much money walking out the door of your store to overpaying your suppliers and vendors. Regarding retail technology today is the time of the late adopters. The time of abacus and late cash registers has long gone and your competition is perhaps already way ahead of you by providing better service, attracting more customers, making more and losing less – all thanks to the smart technologies they use. If you’re still not there, just wait a little longer and even voodoo magic will not help.
• The technology is not scary. It’s just a tool to improve the quality of life (in our case, the life of a business and its employees). Unless you ride a donkey to work you have no reason to fear a computer. Even if you’ve had bad encounters with technology in the past it doesn’t mean that all technology is bad or that you can’t handle it.
• Changing your perspective may bring new revelations. For example, one myth says that the retail technology is too expensive: you may need to pay $5K-$7K for just one POS computer! Just change a perspective for a second: is that expensive to pay, say, $150 monthly for a system that saves you thousands of dollars each month? Don’t think so. If you agree with such assessment, please ask about a leasing option.
• Do your diligence due, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different products and vendors, find success and failure stories, discover all pro- and contra- arguments, evaluate different products. Google it all – the good, bad and ugly, there’s plenty of information available. Keep a long-run perspective: you want to deal only with the vendors who will be there for you tomorrow. Don’t buy “on price” as the cheap solutions most likely have absent or very poor support and lack many important features absence of which may not be visible at first glance.
• Do not delegate research to the third parties (i.e. to “a nephew who’s a computer wiz”). Only you as a business owner or manager are able to make the business decision about why a particular technology solution may or may not work for your business. If you need a technical advice – fine, ask a technician, but only after you‘ve answered all related business questions by yourself. A computer technician – even if he’s a dear nephew or the best son-in-law or whatever – does not know your business as intimately as you do; and he also comes from a completely different angle. Sometimes they will even advise you against a particular technology solution only out of fear of losing their share of technical support service with you.
• Invest your time and heart into the technology project. Designate a project co-champion (as you may not be available at all times), but do not leave your employees to do it on their own. Take the full ownership of the project – from the inception to the end. “Not knowing much about computers” is a lame excuse: when shopping for a new car you won’t delegate it to a local mechanic. Instead, you’d go out and test-drive all cars by yourself even if you didn’t know much about the gasoline engines. Investing your personal time and effort into selecting, building and learning the technology solution for your business will result in much more certain successful outcome.