In the previous note, we go through drives for changes. In this one, I collect popular reasons why staff and even managers tend to resist change more frequently.
Change management is all about people issues. If staff doesn’t obtain the change mission and receive enough support, conflicts or lack of engagement hinder the project delivery lead time. The objective here is how to make change embedded in their working life: understand how it benefits them and feels comfortable with something new then feedback to improve or adjust changes.
To me, there are main 5 reasons for resistance as below. Some articles might crack down into more detailed explanation that is suitable for their business/ sector.
Poor vision
Not everyone sees the picture that the manager refers to. Each person has their view and expectation about change. While tenured staff who have been at the company for a longer time feel comfortable in their comfort zone process, and current corporate cultures. Whereas the less tenured staff might be more open about embarking on the progressive operational changes that a digital transformation could entail. Thus, managers should be well prepared to sell the vision. They have to know how to transform their company for a digital world, how long, how much, and which one can become lead the changes…. The vision should be as clear, inspiring, and specific in metrics as possible.
Emotion fluctuations
In general, any change scheme takes staff out of their comfort zone. It, at first, will add more workload. Then to roll out changes, staff will have to complete more skill acquisition or training; which threatens their competence, status, and autonomy. It will lead to unintended consequences elsewhere. For instance, staff might be reluctant to experiment. However, change will become easier over time, along with motivation, and training when staff are familiar with it.
This emotion fluctuation is visually modeled in Change Transition Curve by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (dated 1960)
Poor communication
Communication is a vague issue but that is the way we share a vision and implement change. It is an art to sell the future of business and inspire people to embrace something new. It is an art to manage training: divide them into chunky bites that are easier to digest and save people from being overwhelmed by complex technical systems. I list down some points essential to improve your communication:
- Interpersonal communication to build rapport and good relationships with people
- Presentation skill that boosts the coherence and cohesion of training sessions.
- High emotion control and expectation management. It comes from my experience when sometimes, you are well prepared for everything but your partner’s expectation about change differs and suddenly everything is disrupted. Even how supportive, friendly and trustworthy you express, patience and determination might work finally.
Lack of engagement, involvement
Vision is just the beginning. Staff can feel how committed you are for one project. The determination and consistency of the management will drive the team to move forward. As a leader, you might know the whole picture of business operation, the cycle of the market, and sector, and therefore adopting one project one time also reflects your commitment to change.
You can easily find a research result of how many percent of change management fails or wins on the internet. I have a slight difference in failure definition. Mostly SaaS/ platform implementation has its edges. When tagging failure, possible they judge based on the project lead time and the outcomes. The change process can occur longer than expected. To a specific time, change shapes the way business work. If the project team is consistent with implementation and reinforcement – training, improving, their drives steer the team operation. A regular check, and review will make sure that changes are happily embedded into teams. How long is the reinforcement or how frequent depends on each business?
The system itself is too complex
Understandably, it can happen this way. In some cases, the adoption of inappropriate software, and platform might cause more effort and cost to configure, and train. Some platforms are developed for a niche segment before scaling up and being developed for others.
It is about a purchasing process that requests a thorough check during pilot phases to see how it works. Possibly, the change might be delayed for months but it affects everyone’s expectations and higher successful chances finally.
As I say, there are lots of reasons for change resistance, depending on each business unit and sector. This note is just my accumulation and my observation. You can add more drives and reasons for changes with comments, please.#
Norwich, UK
October 2020
Kate N.