What Leaders Wish They Had Known About Change

You try to change a complacent workplace culture. Some team members complain to HR and you’re asked to account for causing employee discontent.

You’re assigned to help a leader of another department improve her team performance. You study the situation and propose a solution the leader rejects. Those who made the assignment blame you for the leader’s poor decision.

These are two examples of what can happen when leaders don’t understand how change works. When leaders see people distress over change, they may determine that resistance is bad and the person causing it is the problem.

Leaders respond better to change when they understand that people naturally resist it. It doesn’t matter how skillfully a manager introduces or manages it. Some resistance is inevitable. Why? Because asking people to deviate from how they currently work takes them out of their comfort zones. Change can make them feel unsure of what the future may bring and less in control. Many become anxious about their ability to succeed under new, less predictable, conditions.

This unpredictability usually occurs in response to some business need. So, if there’s a performance or profit gap, it may prompt a need to change a leadership practice, process, or skill set. The amount of change required to address the need effects how people respond. A greater business need usually demands a greater change than a lesser need.

In most cases, the greater the change needed, the greater the discomfort. If people are only asked to make minor changes, it isn’t hard because what they have to do isn’t that different from what they have been doing. To close wider gaps, people have to make bigger changes, which takes them much further out of their comfort zones.

When people are out of their comfort zones, they tend to find problems with the change plan, process, or leaders driving change. We call these “fit’ issues. The greater the change, the greater the “fit” issues. And the greater the “fit” issues people have, the more they resist the change.

Remember, we said that resistance to change is natural. It is also not inherently evil. When we proceed down a path of change, we should expect some resistance. It is not a question of whether we will experience some resistance, but when we will experience it. The sooner we recognize and confront it, the better able we will be to address it.

Ignoring resistance, or not recognizing it until we are well into the change process, can spell disaster for any change initiative. Resistance can show up at critical times and be disruptive. It may take the form of questioning the decision, challenging credentials and capabilities, disengaging, arguing and others. That’s why it is so important to flesh it out and confront it early. If we address it early, we can avoid unpleasant surprises later in the change process.

So don’t punish your champions of change because of a little resistance. Prepare both your leaders and those affected by the change for the resistance they may feel. Help them discover and address their fit issues early. Recognize resistance as inherent in change and embrace it, don’t punish it. Leverage it as an opportunity to engage people in creating something new and better.

Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.

Ascent Management Consulting is found at www.ascentmgt.com and specializes in performance turnarounds, leadership coaching, and appraisal-less performance management.