The first three steps of The Brookside Group’s ASPIRE Change Leadership Model^TM tell you where you are, where you will go and how you are going to get there. The fourth step is the journey itself. “Implement Initiatives” encourages a deliberate, cautious, metrics-based approach to executing the change program. At its core is a set of approaches to overcome resistance.

Regardless of whether your proposed change is significant or relatively minor, you can anticipate resistance from some or all employees impacted by the effort. In fact, SHRM’s 2007 study on Change Management shows that about 70% of major organizational changes encounter employee resistance.

Your employee’s resistance can have many origins – such as differing on why change is needed, what change is needed or how to go about the change – and take many forms. They may show obvious signs of resistance, as when they strongly object to, or refuse to cooperate with, the change. Sometimes their resistance takes on a more subtle appearance, as when they show apathy. 

It is vital that you, as a change sponsor, not only anticipate resistance from your employees, but have a plan to detect, diagnose and eliminate it. You also must understand why they resist change so that, from the very beginning of your initiative, you can undertake preventative measures to minimize its potential effect on your success.

As discussed in our post about setting goals, gaining input on goals enables people to become aware, understand and participate in the change process. At one client, we used a three-step implementation approach for most tactics. It wasn’t the three steps that were important, it was the fact that people got to participate in the rollout of every tactic that was important. The approach consists of:

• The Laboratory – the laboratory was essentially a focus group. Beyond providing the project team the input on how to adjust messages and timing, it gave the project team the confidence that they would be able to rollout the tactics.
• The Pilot – the pilot was a internally visible test marketing of various concepts. The project team used the pilot to use new presentation material, validate training material and test new support tools. The pilot participants became change agents and ambassadors of the new ways of working. “I was part of the pilot, and it mostly worked. We recommended a few changes, but it can work for you too.”
• The Rollout – the third and final stage, the rollout is the large scale implementation of the change. By this point, confidence is high and resistance is significantly lowered.

Resistance to change isn’t necessarily all bad, as it sometimes can serve a constructive purpose. Allowing employees to express their beliefs and feelings will help you identify where their concerns lie and how to address those concerns to achieve the needed commitment to your change program.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 5:40 am and is filed under Change Management, Leadership.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.