Organizational Change Resistance

• Identifying Organizational Change Resistance
• Calling out Organizational Change Resistance
• Coaching for Organizational Change Resistance
• Three Things to Remember about Organizational Change Resistance

Three Steps to Dealing With Organizational Change Resistance:

1. Identify the resistance
2. Call out the resistance
3. Coach the resistance

Identifying Resistance

The first step in overcoming Organizational Change Resistance is to identify the symptoms of resistance.

• Missed Deadlines – One way for people to resist is to simply “blow off” a deadline.  If this is happening regularly, it could be due to resistance.
• Excuses – Do people make excuses for why things are not getting done, or not being done in the prescribed way?
• Finger Pointing  — Another way to resist is to point the finger elsewhere when thing go wrong.
• Analysis Paralysis – Becoming overly-analytical is a way to avoid doing something you don’t want to do.
• Silence — Withdrawing feedback or input is a way to demonstrate resistance.
• Procrastination

Call Out the Resistance

The first step to dealing with Organizational Change Resistance is call it out for what it is.  When you confront people with this, keep the following things in mind:

• Use direct, neutral, everyday language.
• Describe how you see the resistance showing up.
• Describe the impact the resistance has on you and the organization.
• Describe how you are feeling.

Coach the Resistance

Coaching people through Organizational Change Resistance is not fundamentally different than coaching through other performance issues:

1. Provide context.  Ensure that people understand the larger picture, and why you are asking them to do things.
2. Clarify with them that they fully understand what you are asking.  Ask clarifying and confirming questions to test their understanding
3. Create a path forward with them about what needs to be differently going forward.  You may need to go back and forth between the Clarify and Create stages a few times.
4. Commit to what you will do to help people, as well as specific dates and deadlines for things that they are going to do differently
5. Close your coaching session with a recap of what has been decided, who has what commitments, and express your confidence that the person can be successful.

Three Things to Remember About Dealing With Organizational Change Resistance

1. Leadership is a contact sport – you need to engage people, and discuss things when experiencing resistance.
2. Use the coaching model template to prepare.  Your conversation needs to be structured, so use this tool to help do so.
3. Involve them in the problem solving effort.  Getting their buy-in necessarily means involving them.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Organizational Change Resistance (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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