Fear is the app killer

Kimberly Black, The Agile Business Navigator, has a post that suggests something about human psychology, Remove my fear and get me as a life time customer.  She also links to Creating Passionate Users' post, Reducing fear is the killer app.  The primary anecdote in both articles has to do with fear of doctors and dentists. 

What things do we all put off because of our fear? Going to the dentist, the doctor, the accountant. Wouldn't it be great if each of those listed above strove to make it easier for us?

Just think about this in reference to your favorite change initiative or new knowledge management system implementation.  While there are many, many, many reasons that people don't take to change, I wonder if fear lays behind many of these reasons?  Primarily, fear of pain: job loss, job change, more work, no reward.  You get the picture.  If these fears go unspoken, the change effort will struggle.

The challenge is to acknowledge that fear and help people articulate the causes and sources of those fears, so that these "I told you so's" can be trimmed before making the change.  Get people talking about the negative implications of the change or the it-will-never-work-because issues.  Figure out if these issues are real, and take care of them as part of the implementation.