“People are resistant to change.”

I’ve heard various versions of this plenty of times when a change initiative hasn’t gone the way people hoped – when a restructure creates tension, or a new system isn’t adopted, or an expansion strategy stalls.

And there is some truth to it. Change can be uncomfortable. It disrupts routines, threatens familiar roles, introduces uncertainty. So sometimes people push back. But I’m not sure that “Why are people resisting this?” is always the best question to ask.

A better question is usually:

How were people involved in creating the change in the first place?

• Who was involved?
• What conversations took place?
• What information was shared?
• What concerns were explored?
• What opportunities existed for people to influence the response?

“People Support What They Create”.   Margaret Wheatley

People are far more likely to support a change when they have had a genuine opportunity to help shape it. And people closest to the work often hold knowledge that leaders can’t see. So ensuring that key internal stakeholders are involved in both shaping the nature of changes, and then in its implementation, is pretty fundamental to whether the change sticks. Change that is led internally and not just imposed externally is more likely to last.

And this is not about having people feel consulted (that’s “participation theatre”). Nor is it about developing a communication plan to let them know what’s been decided. It’s about involving people in the actual thinking – in identifying the problem, exploring the options, and shaping the response.

Resistance or Feedback?

Not everything that looks like resistance is resistance. When the perspectives of key internal stakeholders are excluded, implementation problems are often interpreted as resistance. But sometimes they are actually information.

Sometimes what gets labelled as resistance can be one of the following:

• Expertise — where a frontline worker or experienced practitioner who has seen this approach tried before and knows why it didn’t work
• Practical wisdom — knowledge of operational realities, customer behaviour or local context
• Legitimate concern — an awareness of unintended consequences that the people designing the change couldn’t see.
• Care — care for clients, care for colleagues or community members who will be affected. Or just care for the quality of the work.

I remember a planning session I was facilitating with staff from a highly regarded NGO in the human services sector who were deciding whether to accept funding to set up a new program. A number of people in the room were pretty cautious about the whole thing – they had concerns about how the proposed new program could potentially compromise an existing program – negatively impacting clients, workers and the organisation’s reputation. Their concerns were discussed in detail, and the “unintended consequences” identified, leading to some important modifications being made to the proposed program before it was accepted. 

In this case the people who were cautious were actually carrying real intelligence about what could go wrong. The challenge is to create the conditions where that intelligence can surface, where the conversation is genuinely open enough for people to feel that the effort of speaking up is worthwhile. The group process needs to do this – enable the group to think collectively and develop a richer understanding of the problem – and then, likely emerge with a more robust response.

Of course, not all resistance is useful. Some changes challenge established habits, assumptions and sources of influence. But treating all resistance as a people problem can prevent the group from hearing valuable feedback.

People are more willing to embrace change when they understand it, contribute to it and see its relevance. What people tend to resist is having change imposed upon them without meaningful involvement.

Change and Transition

“It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions.” William Bridges

William Bridges, whose work on transition and change has had enduring influence, makes a useful distinction between change and transition:

Change is the external event — the restructure, the new system, the policy shift.

Transition is the internal psychological journey that people go through in response to the change (Bridges, 1991).

The trouble is that most organisations plan carefully for the change and almost not at all for the human transition that accompanies it. They announce the new structure but provide little support for the disorientation that follows.

Yet it is often in that space that trust is built, concerns are surfaced and commitment emerges.

Bridges describes three predictable phases of the transition:

• the Ending,
• the Neutral Zone, and
• the New Beginning.

There is the potential for resistance at each of these three stages …

Understanding and developing facilitative strategies to honour these phases is, as Bridges notes, “the most important part of change management”.

Honouring the Three Phases of Transition

Endings

People may resist Endings because it means giving up their sense of identity as it is expressed in their current work – including their roles, relationships, routines and expertise. A sense of loss in this situation is a very real human reaction. And the emotional range can be wide: distrust, resentment, anxiety, guilt, self-absorption.  

What people need, therefore, are opportunities to acknowledge what is changing and what may be lost. Processes that encourage listening, reflection and open discussion can help people express concerns, ask questions and make sense of what is ending.

The Neutral Zone

People resist the Neutral Zone because of the chaos and uncertainty it brings. Old ways are no longer fully effective, but new ways have not yet become established.

This is often the stage where people need opportunities to think together, explore different perspectives, test ideas and learn from experience.

Rather than rushing to certainty, effective leaders create conditions where experimentation, dialogue and learning can occur.

New Beginnings

And people resist New Beginnings because of the risky business of doing and being what they have never done or been before. So new beginnings require more than announcing a new direction. People need opportunities to understand what the new reality means, build confidence, develop new routines and commit to a shared future.

Processes that support participation, learning and ownership help people move from compliance towards genuine commitment.

Across all three phases, the common thread is obviously involvement. People are more likely to navigate transition successfully when they have opportunities to contribute, make sense of what is happening and help shape what comes next.

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My experience working with disability employment services transitioning to the NDIS highlighted how externally imposed change can sometimes actually become a catalyst for enhanced collaboration across organisations.

At one organisation, I was facilitating a workshop with a representative group from across the business who were design a new service model. Fairly early in the session someone said:

“This is the first time we’ve all been around the table together discussing our work!”

And there was real energy in the room. People were mapping out what the future service model might look like (while honouring the foundation the legacy businesses had provided).

What really struck me was how quickly they “self-organised” – new connections emerged, silos began to break down, and you could see them gaining confidence in their ability to navigate the change together.

A Better Question

The next time you hear someone say, “People are resistant to change”, it may be worth pausing before accepting it …

Perhaps they are providing information. Perhaps they have concerns that have not yet been heard. Or perhaps they simply haven’t had the opportunity to participate in shaping the future they are now being asked to embrace.

The task of leadership is not simply to manage change, it is to create the conditions in which people can navigate transition and work together to shape what comes next.

What has your experience been?
When people appear to be resisting change, what have you found is really going on? I’d be interested to hear what others have noticed in their own organisations.

References
Bridges, W. (1991) Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Wheatley, M. J. and Kellner-Rogers, M. (1998) ‘Bringing life to organizational change’, Journal for Strategic Performance Measurement, April/May.