Overcome Resistance to Change: Magnets or Bowling Balls
If everyone likes it, why bother? Change is never enjoyed by everyone.
Leaders think too much about ‘what’ and not enough about ‘how’ when making change.
Failure:
John Kotter suggests 8 reasons transformation efforts fail.
- Lack of urgency.
- No powerful guiding coalition.
- Lack of vision.
- Undercommunicating vision by a factor of ten.
- Not removing obstacles.
- Lack of short-term wins.
- Declaring victory too soon.
- Failure to anchor change in corporate culture.
Overcoming resistance to change:
Magnets are better than bowling balls when it comes to inspiring change.
Enthusiasm feels like intimidation to people who ‘don’t get it’.
#1. Make room for concerns, complaints, and doubts.
Your uninformed optimism creates distrust. You seem blind and disconnected when you don’t acknowledge legitimate concerns.
Don’t minimize risk, difficulty, or uncertainty. But don’t circle the blackhole.
#2. Talk a little more about loss.
You’re excited about gains, but the fear of loss is strong motivation. The pain of losing twenty dollars exceeds the pleasure of gaining twenty dollars. (Thinking Fast and Slow)
What might be lost if we don’t change?
#3. Extend genuine respect.
Unintended offense causes resistance.
We usually push harder when facing resistance. But people don’t fall like bowling pins.
“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” Peter Senge
People feel disrespected until they feel understood.
#4. Sincere curiosity demonstrates respect.
Be curious about:
- People. What do you know about the people who express resistance? Don’t assume you know why people are resistant.
- Shared values.
- Shared goals. What do we really want for each other?
“People have to believe that the price of the status quo is dramatically higher than cost of the transition.” Daryl Conner
What helps leaders overcome resistance to change?
The Science of Changing Someone’s Mind – (nytimes.com)
Overcome Resistance to Change by Enlisting the Right People (hbr.org)
Thanks for the reminders. I just ran a short survey to glean information about a change in one of our divisions where there is going to be a signifiant change. Prior to implementing the survey, I interviewed managers who were convinced their people were going to be resisting efforts to change. Surprisingly, the survey found that people were looking forward to the change – a technology tool change. What they were most concerned about was HOW the tool change was going to affect their work. They wanted to know more and they wanted to know it in detail.
Overall, the mood was positive with the front lines. Less so with the managers overseeing the transition which is where I have been spending a little more time trying to get at their issues. We’re going to work on ensuring that as training begins and the tools are implemented, people are all in involved and can have a say in the process changes and work flows. Manager concerns are mostly workload based – running two systems and maintaining a semblance of productivity – that’s the stress they eventually articulated. It’s been a good beginning. Managers are starting to feel better knowing that their people are keen and their own workload issues are being considered by decision makers. I am feeling pretty good about this one. Ask me again in a year!
So brilliant, Theresa. Your comment is a lesson in going to the people who are impacted by change and learning from them. It’s not surprising that the managers are concerned. They have results to deliver and change always impacts results. Usually things get worse before they get better. Thanks again for sharing your process. I wish you well.
Leaders are sometimes put in the position of effecting change in areas that strayed from established policies and rules already in place. That happened to me on two occasions, at different locations where my predecessors had allowed important rules to be swept aside – hence the need to put things back in place. On both occasions I tried the ‘magnet’ approach and obtained the necessary buy-in from most to move forward. Some though resisted, to the point where their behaviors were obstructive, undermining what needed to be done. I tried engaging each individually, but they did not see the need to embrace change (one was outright dismissive).
Someone once framed the 4 reasons why people won’t do things: 1. They didn’t know (no one told me); 2. They lack the aptitude or training (or both); 3. They’re overwhelmed (I’ve got too much on my plate) or; 4. They don’t want to (make me). Leaders tend to discipline the 2’s, while sending the 4’s off for training, when the reverse should be happening.
One should, of course, try the magnets when introducing change in the workplace (or to bring people back to the way things are supposed to be done), and seek to understand when there isn’t that buy-in. At some point, though, the bowling balls need to come out, to take out the corner pins.
Thanks RW. Anyone who maintains an obstructionist stance – over the long-haul – doesn’t belong in the organization. Give them a graceful path out. Or, when necessary, bring out the bowling balls. It’s just about being human. I doubt that anyone who gets bowled over will ever fully embrace or endorse the change. Compliance isn’t commitment.
In some cases, you may need to start by taking small steps. Move people along a continuum from curiosity, to more discussion, to pilot projects, and finally asking them to make a full commitment. Plant seeds and keep watering them until you can get full buy-in.
Use less “telling” and more “asking questions” to understand their rationale and concerns.
Thanks Paul. Any change effort that neglects curiosity is doomed. The other thing that may be missing is a failure to begin with the reasons we can’t continue as things are. Doing this without demonizing the past is essential.
Often, leadership – especially mid-level leaders – will make noises about needed changes that are “best practices” but they will not support the actual implementation. They don’t have to (although they might) undermine it actively; simply not providing people time to work on it sends the message. This is not usually malevolent; they’ve gotten to where they are by doing what they are doing now which must therefore be successful. Under those circumstances, which I have found to be more the rule, there will be no powerful coalition until small victories build a bandwagon they can climb into. (Shameless plug: my book “Let It Simmer,” which draws in part on ideas from this LeadershipFreak blog, describes how to get to that point).
Thanks Douglas. No worries on the shameless plug. Your observation that people who make noise about needing change but don’t actually support it is profound and true in my experience as well. I’ve learned to ask these noise-makers what they would like to do to produce the state the desire. Often they want someone else to do it. That’s a red flag. Often noise-makers want OTHERS to change. 🙂
Under the category of respect, I have seen people who were fully committed to the old way resist the new way because of that commitment. The message they were hearing was that their efforts to develop, implement and maintain the old way were not being appreciated. It may be hard to pin this one down as the source of the resistance. They may not even be able to frame it words. So you need to explain how the new way is respecting the old way, especially if you can show how the new way builds off the experience from the old way.
Thanks Jennifer. I’ve been guilty of offending the people who brought us here because I was so excited about going further. It’s a terrible blunder. The people who created the present aren’t the enemy. 🙂
“People feel disrespected until they feel understood.”
So obviously true yet so often disregarded!
Great refresher on change management!