Change management
Resistance to Change
In all humans activities changes are a given as well as resistance. Some research indicates that more than 50% of all change efforts fail because of resistance to change.
The change resistance reasons are various.
- Very often people have had no opportunity to understand the full picture.
- In others, people understand the needs for changes but disagree over the actions.
- People are not resisting change but simply wishing to retain the status quo.
- Finally others simply do not want any more change.
To push back or to reject changes deployment some techniques or behaviors are common like:
- Malicious commitment – agreeing and seeming to go along, only to demonstrate a lack of compliance later on
- Confusion – goals confusion.
- Early walls – rejecting change even before explanation.
- Push back – no acceptance of changes.
- Sabotage – actions to kill the change before get consolidated.
- Easy and fast Agreement – agreeing with little resistance to postpone resistance at the first problems.
- Silence – absence of feedback.
Mitigation actions:
You will almost certainly not eliminate resistance, but some common techniques allow to reduce the extent and level of resistance or its impact. Following are tactics or strategies:
Gap analysis Current vs Future
Organise events to carry out a diagnosis of the Current State (e.g. customer satisfaction) – show that the Current State is not that great. Present people with facts about the Current State and what is likely to happen without actions.
Participation and sharing
Participation in change can work, share planning will result people to be involved either directly or indirectly (via representatives).
Rewarding
Avoid the trap of changes to be a cost to people, sometime people paying th ecahge cost are not the same people benefiting for them. Recognize that factor in public and define a compensation rewarding system to get on board everyone sharing changes benefits
Generate a positive Team Dynamics
In organizations , the group dynamics can work for or against. Try to generate this in support of the change. The key step is to recognize that such problems exist, that they damage both the person and the organization; and then to organize mechanisms to suit.
