Hidden Resistance

Over the years of being involved in many organisational change initiatives, there has always been resistance. Some of the reasons for resistance are obvious and easily addressed. Some are more subtle, hidden away in places we don’t often consider. In my experience, locating and addressing hidden resistance has a much greater effect on progressing change, than adding further force.

One hidden source of resistance is that the status quo serves some or all of the people in some way. It doesn't necessarily need to be positive - the old adage about the devil you know exists for a reason! Asking and answering the question “How does the current situation serve me/us/them?” will give some insight. Here are a few examples I have encountered.

• Ian had been one of the major people involved in creating the current system. He was quick to admit that it no longer served the organisation and it was time to move on, but he also had an emotional attachment to it. It was hard to let it go without feeling that his original work was somehow substandard. He also felt that people pushing the change were not listening to his depth of experience. How could you address this with Ian?

• Lorraine knew her team and their circumstances very well. She manually ran an excellent roster of many people and never missed a beat. As the organisation grew, rostering was being brought into a central function, which gave capacity to better manage overtime hours, use people’s skills and availability across a larger spread of the organisation's work and allow staff to easily see their rosters and request changes. Lorraine was concerned about losing control of the excellent relationships she had with her staff and clients. She was also concerned about learning a computer based system, and was resolutely sticking to her paper based one, slowing the whole project down. How could you assist Lorainne with that situation?

• The whole of A Shift had a reputation for quickly solving the problems that the current system caused (usually many a day). They relished their reputation and the edgy excitement of solving problems ‘on the fly’. An A Shift supervisor said, "the new system will mean less problems, and our work immediately becomes more mundane and boring.” A Shift was significantly blocking progress on the new system and as a result getting even more problems to solve. How would you work with A Shift?

In each of these situations, once the reasons for resistance were heard, understood and addressed, the people involved became avid supporters of the changes being made. Trying to force them toward the new systems would have resulted in them being casualties of change, or the resistance being driven more underground.