By René Bomholt, change manager
You know it as a regular part of many frameworks on change management:
Managing the “resistance to change”.
It requires plans to deal with this resistance, it comes in various levels of resistance, and it seems to be taken for granted.
Well, here’s a novel idea: Stop talking about resistance.
Resistance indicates a wrongdoing on the part of whomever resists. And if you want to drive successful and engaging change initiatives, the people who are concerned are your friends.
Listen to them. Understand them. And course correct.
More often than not, what is seen as resistance is a natural and human reaction to uncertainty. The best way to clear away uncertainty? Listen and communicate. Listen in order to understand how your message has been understood, because what was clear in your mind when you made that town hall presentation, may well have been received otherwise by the crowd. Especially if your logic rationale was presented on slide three, after you announced a major re-organization on slide two.
A small change for some can be a big change for others. Listen out for those signs and remove uncertainties for those affected. The ones that are not necessarily cheering at the news of a new IT solution, because they have built a lot of street-credit by knowing the ins and outs of your current, but outdated, solution? Engage them in the configuration of your new solution. They know the quirks of the old one, and how to get around them. They know what bothers their colleagues on the ground. They’ll spread good vibes if they get a say. Not in the decision, but in the implementation of it. Engage them and clear their uncertainty as to whether they still add value, now that their expertise in the old system becomes obsolete.
Put the message out there. Let the dust settle. Then listen. And communicate again – addressing what you’ve heard.
Engaging people in your change and listening to their feedback does not mean changing the decision. It gives you the opportunity to improve the implementation of it. And to help the people in your organisation assist the change in the best possible way.
You don’t engage people, if your mind is set on them resisting what you’re trying to achieve.
That’s why we need to change the narrative and remove resistance from our change management vocabulary.
Learn more about change and resistance to new ideas
The conversation on change continues in several of our peer groups, if not all of them. You can meet René in person in our Copenhagen-based digital project manager group.
Rarely has a single slide received so much feedback as when we first saw this at one of our conferences in 2015. Even if your time in school with advanced math was years ago (and this is not even real math as a member pointed out), this is still probably familiar to all, in particular those working in complex organisations.
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