Managing resistance to organizational change involves effectively anticipating resistance, integrating resistance management actions and activities into change management plans, and then activating the people-facing roles within the organization who will conduct the resistance management activities.
This is the primary avenue of resistance management, which involves planning for, addressing or eliminating resistance by effectively applying change management. Resistance prevention is in large part about anticipating and identifying likely resistance early on.
Why individuals resist change varies at different levels of the organization. Executives tend to resist change due to a disconnect with their strategy, financial objectives, or compensation. People managers typically resist change due to lack of awareness, loss of power or control, and overload of current responsibilities. Employees often resist change due to lack of awareness of why the change is happening, not understanding the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?), comfort with the status quo, and fear of the unknown. This information informs development of special tactics to address resistance at each level throughout the change management process.
Prosci uses the word “resistance” to describe the physiological and psychological responses to change that manifest in specific behaviors. When asked during a Prosci webinar what resistance to change looks like in their organizations, webinar attendees provided more than 350 responses.
Senior leaders help manage resistance by communicating the business reasons for the change directly to impacted people and groups. People managers help manage resistance by working with the people and teams who report directly to them. People managers are particularly important in resistance management.
Not all resistance can be avoided or eliminated, and some resistance is important for informing the team about aspects of the change itself (i.e., constructive resistance). Following two avenues of resistance management will help mitigate the negative impacts and reduce the duration of resistance: 1.
Why Resistance Occurs. Change creates anxiety and fear. The current state has tremendous holding power, and the uncertainty of success and fear of the unknown can block change and create resistance. These physical and emotional reactions are powerful enough by themselves to create resistance to change. But there is more to resistance ...
To be effective at managing resistance, you must look deeper into what is ultimately causing the resistance. Effective resistance management requires identification of the root causes of resistance—understanding why someone is resistant, not simply how that resistance is manifesting itself.
The resistance management plan is one of the five change management plans you create in this phase, along with the communication plan, sponsorship roadmap, coaching plan and training plan. These change management plans all focus on moving individuals through their own change process and addressing the likely barriers for making the change successful. The resistance management plan provides specific action steps for understanding and addressing resistance.
Formally addressing resistance ensures that it is understood and dealt with throughout the lifecycle of the project. It moves managing resistance to change from simply a reactive mechanism to a proactive and ultimately more effective tool for mobilizing support and addressing objections.
Change management best practices research provides a nice starting point for understanding the root causes of resistance. Results from the 2013 benchmarking study showed some important themes in the top reasons for resistance (reaffirming the results from previous studies). When asked to identify the primary reasons employees resisted change, study participants identified the following root causes:
Managing resistance is ineffective when it simply focuses on the symptoms. The symptoms of resistance are observable and often overt, such as complaining, not attending key meetings, not providing requested information or resources, or simply not adopting a change to process or behavior.
1. Do Change Management Right the First Time. Much resistance to change can be avoided if effective change management is applied on the project from the very beginning. While resistance is the normal human reaction in times of change, good change management can mitigate much of this resistance. Change management is not just a tool ...
At a high level, senior leaders can help mitigate resistance by making a compelling case for the need for change and by demonstrating their commitment to a change. Employees look to and listen to senior leaders when they are deciding if a change is important, and they will judge what they hear and what they see from this group. If senior leaders are not committed to a change or waver in their support, employees will judge the change as unimportant and resist the change.