Resistance is information

The story we usually tell

The standard version goes like this. Leaders see the need for change. Some employees, for reasons of fear, habit or self-interest, push back. The job of the change team is to overcome them.

In 2008 three researchers, Jeffrey Ford, Laurie Ford and Angelo D' Amelio, pointed out how one-sided that story is. Prevailing views, they wrote, treat resistance as "an irrational and dysfunctional reaction located 'over there' in change recipients." They told the rest of the story: change agents contribute to resistance "through their own actions and inactions," and resistance "can be a resource for change" (Ford, Ford and D'Amelio, Academy of Management Review, 2008).

In plain terms: some of the pushback you are getting, you helped make. A broken promise from the last reorganisation. A decision announced before anyone asked the people who do the work. A plan that quietly adds workload and calls it efficiency.

It is mostly not about personality

There is a genuine personality trait here. Some people are more inclined to resist change than others, and it can be measured (Oreg, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2003). But that is a small part of the picture. A review of 79 quantitative studies across six decades found that how people react to change depends heavily on the context and on how the change is handled (Oreg, Vakola and Armenakis, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2011).

Resistance also travels in conversation. Ford, Ford and McNamara described how it builds in the "background conversations" of an organisation: the stories people already tell about what management does and what usually happens next (Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2002). If the background story is "they never follow through," your launch event is arguing with history.

And it moves. A 2023 study of line managers found their reactions were "situated, fluid forms of change-related subject positioning", not fixed camps of resisters and supporters (Grønvad, Abildgaard and Aust, Journal of Change Management, 2023). The same manager can be for the change on Monday and against it by Thursday, for good reasons.

A word of caution the other way

It would be easy to swing to the opposite view and celebrate all resistance as wisdom. Thomas and Hardy warn against that too. Both demonising and celebrating resistance, they argue, keep the change agent at the centre and miss the power relations underneath (Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2011). Sometimes people object because the plan is flawed. Sometimes because they stand to lose something real. Sometimes both. The job is to find out which, not to decide in advance.

What we suggest instead

1. Rename the box.

   Change "resistance" in your plan to "what people are telling us." It sounds small. It changes what the team goes looking for.

2. Listen before you announce.

   Ask the people closest to the work what will break, what they will have to stop doing and what they are worried about. Write the answers down and show them back, unedited.

3. Sort the signal.

   For each objection ask three questions. Is it about the design? Is it about a real loss? Is it about trust from last time? Each needs a different response, and only one of them is fixed by better communication.

4. Check your own contribution.

   Before the next steering meeting, list the promises made in the last change that were not kept. If you can think of some, so can everyone else.

5. Fix something visibly.

   When people raise a valid point, change the plan and say so. Nothing builds credibility faster than "you told us this, so we changed that."

6. Watch the background story.

   Ask a few trusted people what is being said in the corridor. That is the conversation your change is really competing with.