Change resistance from multiple points of leverage. This is a diagram that I put together when structuring all of the different courses that I will be putting together organizational change. Each part flows from an understanding of why organizations need to change into the types of change how people change. Remember, always remember organizations do not change, people within organizations change and you have to have that as a foundational step. You also have to be able to analyze IQ diagnose what needs to be changed as well as what needs to be protected. Then we talk about the methodology employed in a change project.

The tools that are at hand for enabling change the personal becoming a change Agent, how you develop your leadership capabilities, as well as the tracking of progress. All of these are really sections at a master course for organizational change. When I originally put together the total table of contents, and then went back to see where videos for this course, existed, I was somewhat surprised to find that I did not have a single subsection anywhere on change resistance. Instead, it was in multiple places. And that took me back a little bit because when you think about change resistance, you think about something like this course, a series of learning steps to understand and address resistance. But in reality, change resistance impacts the entire process, generally because you don't do something right somewhere else.

Traditionally, we talk about fighting resistance. Resistance is a war you had it, you deal with it head on, you find a way for them to change, you fight the resistance. That is a traditional way. We deal with resistance to organizational change. you verify the facts. What do we know?

What do they know? You challenge beliefs. What's your opinion? Why do you think what you're thinking? We challenged them at a rational level of what they believe why they believe it. We do acknowledge emotions.

We acknowledge it not because we really are interested as much as we see it as a pathway to eliminating or reducing the resistance, making them friends on our side. We also relate to the values, we think what are your priorities relative to the organization? Are you putting your personal agenda ahead of the organization's it becomes a loyalty issue. These are the traditional ways we address resistance. This is the this is the default, but is it the best way to trigger for resistance is often a hidden, we don't easily understand them. But our typical response is persuasion and training.

We communicate In a persuasive way to win them over to the change, and we give them training, because they're learning something new. This is the way we traditionally approach change from an implementation point of view, as well as when resistance occurs. But let's think about this a little bit more. Too often we think about all change coming from the same way, the same purpose, the same foundation, but in reality, we need to separate them into two separate places of where the change might originate. First is the change objective itself. What are we trying to change?

What is the end state we're trying to get to? But more important in some ways, is the methodology that we are putting in place to move people through the change process, they may agree with the objective, but disagree with the methodology or they may disagree with the objective itself, because they because we did not protect what needs to be protected while defining the change objective. So, we need to think through two sources in of resistance. So, the change objective is it unclear is aligned with the organization, process processes that are already in place this gets into deciding what needs to be changed and what doesn't change and how that is connected together. We also need to have the change objective, being non controversial or non confrontational with the existing culture or the normal way of doing business. To the extent that we have a change objective that is culturally in violation some way, we're talking about a different change objective or the objective itself may be subordinate to a larger cultural change.

There's also the personal agendas, to what extent does the change the organizational change objective, impact personal agenda, what people believe about themselves and what their identity is within the organization? within the methodology, what kind of engagement are we using? This is a five step level of engagement that typically is employed when moving any type of change forward. Do you tell them? Do you sell them? Do you test the ideas Do you consult with them?

Or do you co create together? We're going to be spending some time on these levels of engagement. When do you use each level of engagement? And how does that choice then lead into the resistance that may come about within the organization? persuasion through communication. This is generally the first approach that change leaders use when rolling out a change initiative and is often not very effective for a number of reasons.

The resistors you are unlikely to be able to talk somebody into something that they're resisting. You can try but it's a very difficult process, because there are so many things that may be behind the resistance And you've got so many different people with a different combination, that how can you talk everybody into agreeing with the change? when everybody is thinking about it differently from different points of view, the issues that are involved are too complex for a simple message. And oftentimes, the reasons behind the resistance or what you're trying to persuade, is hidden. And you only discover them through testing or through a trial and error process on the wait and see people. There's oftentimes a conflict between the old messaging and the new messaging, there is a abrupt change without any context for why the message change.

They're also waiting things to blow over this too will pass. This is based upon their prior learning in earlier change initiatives, if they know that they can sit and do nothing or be passive aggressive, and the change process will die and go away, that becomes a logical way for them to behave. And no amount of communication will persuade them differently. And it's often better for them to be a slow follower, letting others do the hard work upfront, and then they'll come in behind and do the easy work. And there's some validity in this. Because rarely is the change process known fully before you start, you're always going to encounter some difficulties, and to the extent that those difficulties are inevitable, the recent moment minor changes down the road, those that are on board and ready.

They're too often interested in what not the why. Okay? They also lack the context, but because they may be more obedient, they want to do things quickly without understanding why the change is being put in place that properly equips them for doing the change very narrow, but too often, you cannot mandate all the variations that may be required. And without the full context of the change, they may not be, they may not be effective down the road. Also, they can also hijack the change initiative for their personal benefit. If they jump on quick.

They can become part of the leadership team and move it in their direction. This can lead to other problems and other resistance down the road. training. Training is the second default. We know that change requires different ways of doing things. And that is the role of training and development of people.

Training, though, needs to be aligned with where the individual's stage of change is. There's five stages of change. The first three are critical when implementing change. And if you're putting a change process in place that is misaligned, with where they are in the change process, it's a wasted effort. First is the ignorance of the problem. Do they understand the context of the problem being solved, if their context is not there?

It's a wasted effort add the confusion, because they're seeing action taking place that does not match their understanding of the world or the organization from their previous point of view. Second, do they have a decision to change? Oftentimes we think that people will quickly change when in reality, even after the understand the context of the problem, they have not yet made the decision to move forward for change. Third, the preparation stage. This is when it is now appropriate for training. This is where people leading change too often think the entire organization is that all we need to do is prepare them for training and stage three and they're ready to go into stage four.

The action if we From the action point of view, it's really too late because they're not trained. They're not on board do understand the context. The resistance depends on the perspective of the people involved. From the managers point of view from what we think when we implement change. People are just resistant to everything. People are going to resist, let's plan for the resistance and deal with it.

When it happens. It's inevitable. That's our point of view. But the change recipients point of view is very different to them. It may be too hard to learn something new, it may conflict with what I want to do for myself interest. Or I may think, from the best interest of the organization, that the objective is flawed.

These all have resistance to the change objective. There's also resistance to the change process. Are they being changed without their consent? Do they see conflicts with that change in other things are going on in the organization? Or do they see lack of resources, money, and more importantly the time to do the change process and reality, we may be the cause of the resistance, resistance. Are we understanding resistance in totality?

Or are we looking at resistance only from the point of view of the change incipient