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Change Agents: Rethink Resistance to Change
If you are involved in managing change you will probably have directly experienced the power of resistance. Your best laid plans may have been challenged, undermined and even shredded by those people in your organization implicated in the proposals. It is tempting to categorize this resistance as being something that simply needs to be overcome and portray its instigators as being unreasonable. But according to Jeffrey Ford, Laurie Ford and Angelo D’Amelio* this can be a very self-serving approach which potentially disguises incompetence and mismanagement of the change process. In addition, it also means a missed opportunity to build commitment from those clearly engaging in its implications.
The researchers argue that resistance is a convenient label – something which change agents can use to make sense of reactions to their initiatives. The danger is that it can divert attention away from a failing of the change agent - absolving them from responsibility if the project is unsuccessful. They argue that change agents even contribute to resistance. By failing to recognize that change often breaks an understood and expected pattern of cooperation they ignore organizational justice issues. In addition, resistance can build because of poor communication which fails to legitimize the change, misrepresents the chances of success and fails to call people to action.
So, rather than seeking to overcome resistance, what strategies can you adopt when you experience it? According to the Fords these are some of the key actions:
- Legitimize any change by providing compelling justifications for its adoption couched in benefits for the recipients. Recognise that the new innovation/practice will not sell itself.
- Encourage scrutiny of your proposals to give those affected by the change the chance to reassess their position and avoid the problem of inoculation – where existing ideas remain unchallenged and become entrenched. Ambivalence on your part can foster resistance by not sufficiently challenging the prevailing ideas.
- Present realistic previews - be honest about the expected impact of the change. Recipients compare actual results to promises and mismatches lead to feelings of injustice and violations of trust.
- Call people to action – change is fundamentally about mobilizing people. Check that your conversations are ‘performative’ – they illicit action.
- Check yourself – are you resisting resistance? Be open to the ideas and proposals submitted by change recipients.
Viewed in this way resistance can be seen as a resource – not to be overcome but to be tapped. Conversations of resistance keep the topic circulating, offering the potential for stronger commitment to the change over time as acceptance will have involved more thought. It may require a new way of thinking about resistance as providing essential management feedback.
“In Physics resistance is understood as an inevitable consequence of motion (except in a vacuum) with the magnitude of resistance providing feedback on the mechanism’s design. Change agents can similarly use resistance as feedback on recipient engagement by listening keenly to comments, complaints and criticisms for cues to adjust the pace, scope or sequencing of change and/or its implementation.â€
When you next consider the response of those affected by your change proposal it may be worth thinking twice about calling it resistance. But if you do, then recognize your contribution and the opportunities to deliver more significant change.
*Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story (In Press) The Academy of Management Review by Jeffrey Ford, Laurie Ford & Angelo D’Amelio.
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Tom Lawrence, our editor, is the Weyerhaeuser Professor of Change Management at SFU.Read Tom's Posts
Graham Dover is a Doctoral student in the Business Faculty at SFU. Read Graham's Posts
Thanks for providing a review of our forthcoming article on “Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story.” Given the amount of space you have, I think you did a good job of summarizing work that took us over two years to complete. I particularly congratulate you for pointing out that what change agents label resistance may not be resistance at all, but a self serving label that alleviates them of responsibility for things not working. I think this could be one of the hardest things for those of us who conduct change to admit - that the reaction we are getting to a change is the result of what we do and don’t do both before and during the change.
The one other thing I would stress is that the quality of the relationship between change agent and change recipient is critical. If the relationship is poor before change begins, then the agent/manager should not expect high levels of cooperation during the change and should not attribute the absence of such cooperation to recipient resistance as if the agent/manager had nothing to do with it. If managers/agents want things to go “smoothly” during change, then they will want to invest in creating strong working relationships based in trust and integrity and be willing to consider change recipients have something to contribute to making a change successful.
Again, thanks for the review and the opportunity to comment.