Imagine that you are sharing a story about what a change will look and feel like to an audience of employees. Perhaps it’s a new piece of technology that is being implemented. Perhaps there will be changes to ways of working. Perhaps it’s a change to the car parking arrangements at the office (always a difficult one to implement!)
What would you rather have? A roomful of people looking at you with their arms folded in stony silence? Or a roomful of people who are asking questions because they want to know more?
These days, I would much prefer to be asked questions, even challenging ones, in this situation. But, when I first started out working in change almost 30 years ago, I would have preferred the silent room. Because, I thought that too many questions undermined the change program that I was working on and perhaps was an indicator of change resistance.
Back then, I saw change resistance as a difficult behavior demonstrated by difficult people. I saw change teams and managers battling to overcome change resistance, without really engaging with it and without much success. Once I started to dig a bit deeper into behaviors during change as part of my PhD research, I realized that the way that people feel about a change is dynamic. Someone who seems very negative and resistant towards a change at one point in a change programs can become a supporter later. Interestingly, this shift seemed to have nothing to do with any activity that had been undertaken to attempt to reduce their level of resistance. Instead, it came from how they felt about the change and the organization on the day.
Because of this, I realized that instead of being a negative reaction to change, perhaps change resistance was the ultimate level of engagement in change. After all, why would someone work so hard to resist something if they weren’t emotionally invested in it?
The history of change resistance in organizations
Before we investigate that, it’s useful to reflect on the history of change resistance in organizations and why we see it as such a negative thing. Resistance has often been typified as the actions of a few ‘difficult’ individuals - “…a counterproductive irritant for mainstream management thought” (Mumby et al 2017. p 1161). Researchers such as Harding et al (2017) highlight the different forms that resistance can take including active (such as striking) to more passive resistance (such as questioning decisions and withholding consent).
The resistance could be organized as a group activity or could be unorganized and demonstrated by an individual. Resistant acts could disrupt business as usual but also be small or micro acts of resistance which, despite being covert, could still lead to delays in implementing a change. As Fronda and Moriceau (2008) state, this is “… the classic situation of the go-slow. This is not explicit resistance (as in conventional revolts or strikes) or a mental pulling-out from the professional sphere (as in withdrawal), but a form of deviance which complies with the letter of the law but discreetly resists its spirit. One goes through the motions…the everyday games of the players who discreetly resist, without proclaiming it loud and clear.” (p.591) The recent phenomenon of quiet quitting is an example of this type of behavior.
The assumption underpinning so much of this research is that managers in organizations can dictate the actions of others with little to no opposition to their ideas. Change resistance is seen as the difficult response of a few and then an interpretation of that behavior by others. Indeed, might it be tempting by a leader or a change agent to blame a failure of a change program on the acts of resistance by others? (Vos and Rupert, 2018)
Reflecting on the existing research into resistance in organizations (of which the examples cited here are just a small sample), you notice the language that has been used to describe change resistance – deviance, difficult, irritant, revolt. Against this backdrop, it’s no wonder that resistance is perceived so negatively in organizations. And perhaps why leaders are sometimes afraid of inviting questions and discussions about a change, just in case these sorts of behaviors start to appear. But, can we be sure that someone asking questions about a change, or taking their time to ‘get with the program’ is resistance?
The answer to that is a definite ‘no’.
Individual responses to change do not (always) equate to change resistance
Often, as we have seen from the research, change resistors are seen as tragic characters (Sturdy and Grey, 2003) in opposition to the hero of the piece – the leader or change agent trying to create change. There is an assumption here that resistance is due to the personal characteristics of the individual (Vos and Rupert, 2018). This might be true, depending on the change that is being introduced and how it fits with an individual’s values and experiences. For example, an employee who is less comfortable with change and uncertainty may find change harder than an individual who is comfortable with uncertainty (Kegan and Lahey, 2001). But, this assumes that if someone currently finds change difficult that this will always be the case. My own research has shown that people constantly shift and change their views about change and many personality profiles such as Lumina Spark acknowledge the paradoxes that exist in human behavior. For example, we can both enjoy the company of others and need time alone to recharge.
So, how do we resolve this paradox in organizations and make conversations about change resistance more constructive? As Mumby et al (2017) state in their article, reframing resistance as a necessary and constructive response to change rather than the irrational behavior of a difficult employee is key.
Reframing to a more constructive view of resistance
As mentioned already, surely if an individual is invested enough in change to express dissatisfaction or ask a lot of questions about the change, these views should be welcomed. For any seemingly resistant act or behavior, it is more important to understand what is behind it rather than dismissing it out of hand. We should be engaging with people to understand their behavior and why it occurs (Stanford, 2013).
I think it is time to reconsider what change resistance is (Warrick, 2023). Instead of being the work of a few disruptive individuals, we should see it as the work of people who are engaged enough in the change to ask questions rather than just accepting what they are told. People who need more detail about what is going to happen and want to share their ideas and engage.
We should see resistance as an everyday feature of all organizations. Every organization is made up of different humans who behave differently every day. Rather than trying to control or minimize resistance, we should welcome it as the reality of the diversity of views in our organizations. This can be scary for leaders and change professionals who may not want to open their carefully planned change program to the views of others.
But, as we all know, change is a complex process and can be messy. And we need to become more comfortable with this if we can change to be successful. Imagine what might happen if we considered the point of view of the resistor and were more curious about what they might be resisting:
· Is it the change?
· Is it the way that it is being implemented?
· Is it something else that is going on in the organization?
· Is it something else altogether?
Once we know this, we can try to understand their point of view and perhaps make changes as a result.
Imagine if we asked people to get involved in a change program right from the beginning rather than seeing them as an annoying distraction from our implementation plan.
Imagine if we asked questions throughout a change and listened fully to what we heard in response. And then used what we found out to improve the way we were doing things.
Imagine if we reframed change resistance as super engagement.
How might that influence the way that we deal with change in our organization?
Might it make our next organisation change more human?
References
Fronda, Y. and Moriceau, J.-L. (2008) I am not your Hero: Change Management and Culture Shocks in a Public Sector Corporation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21: (5): 589-609.
Harding, N.H., Ford, J, and Lee, H. (2017) Towards a Performative Theory of Resistance: Senior Managers and Revolting Subject(ivitie)s. Organization Studies, 38: (9): 1209-1231.
Kegan, R. and Lahey, L.L. (2001) The Real Reason People Won’t Change. Harvard Business Review, 79: (10): 84-92.
Mumby, D.K., Thomas, R., Martí, I. and Seidl, D. (2017) Resistance Redux. Organization Studies, 38: (9): 1157-1183.
Stanford, N. (2013) Should we Resist Resistance? https://naomistanford.com/2013/02/11/should-we-resist-resistance/
Sturdy, A. and Grey, C. (2003). Beneath and Beyond Organizational Change Management: Exploring Alternatives. Organization, 10: 651-662.
Vos, J. F. J. and Rupert,J. (2018) Change Agent's Contribution to Recipients' Resistance to Change: A Two-Sided Story, European Management Journal, 36: (4): 453-462.
Warrick, D.D. (2023) Revisiting Resistance to Change and How to Manage it: What Has Been Learned and What Organisations Need to Do, Business Horizons, 66: (4): 433-441
Dr Susanne Evans is an organization change consultant on a mission to change the way that transformations are managed. She is the author of the bestselling book, ‘ChangeStories®: How to have powerful conversations, tell inspiring stories and build engagement for transformation’ and the host of ChangeStories®, the Top 40 Apple UK Business and Management podcast in which guests share ideas for improving the way that changes are managed in organizations. Having spent 10 years in Big 4 consultancy firms, she saw first-hand how difficult it was to achieve the benefits of large-scale transformation programs and how messy organization change could be. She subsequently completed a PhD to research this further and discovered the power of storytelling. Susanne now works with organizations in both the public and private sector to enable them to build storytelling into their change programs, using what she has learnt from her consultancy experience and her PhD research.
