Ask the average person on the street what "change management" is, and they will probably answer, "It's the cash register function that tells an arithmetically challenged clerk how many coins to dispense in exchange for your dollar bill." Or maybe they'll say, "Get away from me immediately before I administer pepper spray."

Only a few well-informed, modern businesspersons would answer you with the change management consultants' definition: "It's an executive function for developing, implementing, and gaining employee and/or associate acceptance of a new approach to operating the enterprise, such as the adoption of a new IT system or the decision to reduce employee health care benefits to a yearly allotment of ChapStick." This definition is insightful because usually the change that change management consultants are managing faces stiff resistance from employees. This is because in a number of companies, employees are human beings, and the human being is naturally resistant to change. Think about it: We have not even changed the term "status quo" to English.

We are creatures of habit, and habits are hard to change. I follow a morning routine without deviation. I get up at the same time, turn on the coffee, go downstairs, let out the dog, fix the dog's food, let the dog back in, go back upstairs, brush my teeth, take a shower, comb my hair, shave, and then get dressed. I am comfortable with this routine and could do it in my sleep, which I do about half the time. But if I vary it -- let's say I shave before I brush my teeth, and then I attend to the dog -- I might do something wrong, such as shave the dog.

Everyone in a company facing change will profess a willingness to embrace transformation. One thing that never changes is that these people are lying. Employees know that saying "I don't want to do what you want me to do" is akin to saying "I spit on your mission statement." But nobody really wants change unless they are: a) currently incarcerated; b) married to a psychopath; c) wearing intolerably itchy underwear; d) running for elective office; or e) all of the above. If someone is working for a company that tells him he needs to change, he will appear eager to do whatever the company has in mind. But secretly he will do everything in his power to avoid having to do anything different.

I admit that I am the kind of person that gives change management consultants nightmares. I am stuck in my ways. If I'm worried about how shaving before brushing could screw up my simple morning routines, how much would I resist something significant, like having to learn to use new dashboard software? And what would happen to the dashboard software's change management persons if the result of their effort was to convince me to give up my spreadsheets, only to serve executives my performance numbers in a big bowl of dog food?

If I were a change management consultant, here are the principles I would follow:

It is easier to make people change if you can make their present situation more intolerable. What is the corporate equivalent of itchy underwear, and how can you get my psychopathic wife to put it on me?

If you want people to change, make sure they have to do it all at once -- not in little, incremental steps.

I call this the "Band-Aid Method." It is better to rip off a bandage quickly than to remove it slowly, even if my screaming goes on well into the night.

People deserve rewards for changing.

And not just a plaque or a T-shirt. Give me what every employee really wants: more time in the morning to shave the dog.

Dan Danbom writes humor for a number of publications. His latest book is "Humor Meets Your Workforce: Make Laughter One of Your Organization's Goals."