How to Overcome Resistance to Change
Don’t punish resistance; reward participation instead.
“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.”― Peter Senge
Overcoming resistance to change is a crucial priority for senior executives. When change fails, we blame the people.
This mental model is anything but helpful.
The idea that there is resistance to change ―and leaders must overcome it― turns employees into the problem and managers into heroes.
People don’t resist change, per se. This belief causes unproductive discussions and issues― we confuse objections with a lack of collaboration.
What if we stop focusing on overcoming resistance and encourage participation instead?
People Do Not Resist Change, Per Se
Our mental models are so ingrained that we don’t realize it.
Between 50 and 75% of change initiatives fail. But, blaming resistance to change is a poor excuse. As Beer, Eisenstat, and Spector argue, “most change programs are guided by a theory of change that is fundamentally flawed.”
To make change stick, research shows that it has to be intentional and internally motivated rather than imposed from the outside.
