Introduction to organizational change resistance. We're going to start now getting into what is organizational change and understanding of resistance. The paradox here of change resistance, we generally assume that people resist change. But is that true? Because people also resist boredom. We have a paradox here.

So what we're really talking about is not resistance to change, but resistance to people been changed. They like to have control over what is changed and how it has changed. Without that control, they are being changed. They're not deciding themselves to change. This is a key part of understanding resistance to organizational change. But people also default to doing things the easy way.

We're creatures of habit. We do things without thinking about it, run autopilot. Think about the times you've driven down a road to go to a place you've been to frequently. But when you get there, you can't remember how you got there. It's so habitual. It just happens.

So we're going to be talking about giving people a reason to change, because even without a resistance, or a reason to change, they're going to take the easy path. We're going to be talking about why people do, what they do, and how the easy path oftentimes can lead to a reason for resistance because there's no little longer, the easy path. Change involves mental work is conscious activity, we have to think about what we need to do different. We can't go on habit and operate subconsciously. And this is a key part in that change is mentally exhausting work. We have to think about things that we don't normally or don't want to think about.

So, let's talk about the change recipient classification. What we want people to be is on board and ready for the change. However, we generally see two other categories of people. Those that are taking a wait and see. These might be the people that have seen change resistance. Come in They take the attitude of this is the flavor of the month.

And this too shall pass. Don't worry about it now. It will go away on its own. And too often that does happen. There's also the people that are active resistors. And throughout this course we're going to be talking about those that wait and see and those that resist actively, which are the more difficult ones to handle, you may be surprised, going forward then those that are ready to change.

They may not necessarily be beneficially ready to change. They may be politically aligned with the change leaders and possibly yes people. They are doing things because of a personal alignment, not necessarily because of what they think is best for the organization. They may be taking action that is to them personally advantageous, but not necessarily to the organization, if they would think about what they were doing. So even if people are on board and ready for the change, it may not be the best for the organization. Those that are the wait and see, as I said, This too shall pass.

They may disagree with the change objective, or the people that are wrong. They may have a personal conflict with you and the other change leaders and they're standing off to the side. This may be passive aggressive behavior. They will say, Yes, I agree, but then don't do anything. Then on the resistors This is active resistance that may have a hidden agenda, things that you don't know that they know this requires you to get inside their head. They may not even know why they resist because a lot of resistance comes from the subconscious things that are ingrained within the way we do things, because we've been doing them that way.

Also, we need to understand that not all resistance is the same. And we need to be able to differentiate between the resistance and the validity behind the resistance. The challenge then, is, we think about change from a rational evidence that if you present information really rational, if you present information rationally, to the people, they will understand and come on board. However, change is not rational. It's emotional. It's often emotionally self interest based.

So we need to rethink a lot of our change from a rational perspective to an emotional perspective. All change is personal. Think about that. organizations do not change the people in organizations change. And not all aspects of the change are equally important to all people. We need think about what are the benefits to the organization, as the people see it.

As a change leader, we think of change from the organization's perspective. And we think that other people think as we do, that's not the case. They think of change from their perspective. And what worked elsewhere in the world has no bearing upon them. They are unique. The organization is unique and in The argument can be made, that the best practice elsewhere cannot be applied here because of the differences.

True. And even if it weren't true is to is what people believe. What people are really interested in is knowing how they will be impacted. And if necessary, can they follow the early adopters with low risk this gets into the wait and see. If it is safe to follow others. It will be easy for them to take that wait and see passive behavior.

All change is personal. All change is emotional and thereby, resistance originates. Let's talk about change resistance at a high level. The traditional sources that we believe or I should say the traditional sources that most managers leading change believe, is that we're dealing with habits that are really stemming from past practices, including experiences with path change initiatives. We think about resistance from the power dynamics within the organization, who loses who gains power and the impact on the people. We also think about cultural momentum, the habits of the organization, the values, the normal ways the culture operates, and the assumptions that we have within the organization.

These are the traditional ways of thinking about sources of change resistance. We're going to think about things a little different. In addition to these, we're going to be talking about traditional approaches to managing resistance. We often think about supporting people communicating, empathizing and involving people. And we do these in different priorities. We support the people through the training and the time to get used to the change.

We communicate by explaining and oftentimes selling the change initiative. And we empathize with them to identify with the problems that they're having in doing the change, transition. And to some extent, we bring them into the process. The key to resistance though, is not these four approaches, but how you employ these approaches and when you employ them in the overall change planning process. This will be a critical part of what we are going to be talking about. Change resistance.

You know what, when you see it