Dealing with Resistance to Change

Any time you try to make a big change in an organization you will experience resistance. As a leader, you can make a big difference in how effectively you move forward by being aware of how change impacts people emotionally, and spending more time “with them”, almost like a parent understands and handles the phase of temper tantrums in toddlers. People don’t mean to be unprofessional or uncooperative during periods of change. No matter how confident they are normally, organizational changes force them to grapple with real fears. As a leader, you can make it much easier for them to handle their fears and move forward. Here are some tips:

1. When you notice people you thought you could count on resisting the change – don’t take it personally. Keep in mind that everyone struggles when things change, no matter how much they want to support you. A good way to handle this is to say (once you are calm and NOT taking it personally), “I noticed X [insert behavior], and I’m wondering if you are struggling with this change?” Your goal is to get them to open up and articulate their fears – which may be irrational. Just having a safe space to talk themselves through their resistance with your encouragement could be all they need to buy in completely.

2. Keep your eyes open for individual fears of losing power, prestige, or value in a new role. We all have egos, and even though we know intellectually that the change is really about the organization functioning better as a whole, which should eventually offer more individual opportunities – it’s scary to “let go” of something you’ve been attaching your personal identity to. And, unfortunately most people attach their personal identity to their work, in the form of how many people they manage, how large of a budget they control, what title they have, who they get to report directly to, etc. We may be embarrassed about clinging to these things, but it’s normal to feel like we are losing everything that makes us valuable. As a leader you can break through a lot of resistance by taking as much time as needed to talk to constituents individually and validating their value and their role in the new order.

3. Articulate the vision clearly and repeatedly. Every day. Several times per day. It takes SO much energy to do things differently that sometimes the only thing that keeps people going is a sense of excitement over what is possible. If you can keep people focused on the light at the end of the tunnel – they will walk faster.

4. Leverage the power of habits. Do whatever it takes to get people actually behaving in the new way you need them to behave as soon as possible, and as consistently as possible. As soon as people are “in action” they are building habits that will be difficult to reverse later. As long as they are “anticipating the unknown” their resulting anxiety and negativity will slow you down.

5. Talk to people openly about the cycles of change. Let them know what to expect, how long it might last, how you can work as a team to accelerate progress, what behaviors will slow things down, and what you are willing to do to support them through the process. Then keep talking, keep listening, keep “being with” your team emotionally, because that lowers their fear level and helps them stay focused.

Don’t expect change to happen in an instant, and take ownership of your role in the process. As a leader, you can keep people focused on the vision, confident in their new roles, and “in-action”, while also understanding and being patient with their emotional and seemingly childish resistance. You can make a big difference in how smoothly the change goes, and how quickly your team passes through the “unproductive” stages and gets moving to the next level.