How can you develop problem-solving skills in a change-resistant company?

You could start by holding a practical problem solving session with key stakeholders of varying perspectives to help gain insights, whilst minimising bias. The first step is to collectively define the problem, consider the whys, and root cause as this article says. I'd recommend going a step further and looking at the behavioural drivers to resistance. You can do this by using the likes of the COM-B model + theoretical domains framework. The reason = culture and change are human-centric, not an engineering or process problem (though these could be contributing factors if there are roadblocks in these areas). It's not ideal to be creating interventions without first understanding behavioural drivers of resistance.

If you have a limited number of stakeholders, try to have direct contact. In my experience, when having group sessions, people can feel shy to speak up, especially when there′s low psychological safety. If there is the possibility to speak 1-on-1 with people, that′s a great way to create trust and to understand where the resistance comes from.

Be pragmatic about the root cause issues you focus on - begin with the end in mind and prioritize those issues that stakeholders could have energy around addressing. If you can make a clear link between "the problem" and the organization's top priorities, you'll have a much easier time getting traction.

A baby step could be sharing examples of how a tool/framework could have been used to easily identify a solution to a few of the challenges that the company had worked on for a significant time. Example: Using the TRIZ framework for identifying a potential solution for an engineering problem. This gets the people interested in knowing more about the alternative framework, and then once people start seeking more information, introduce the framework/tool.

In my experience of 50 years, change resistance comes from bad leaders leading that change. People are afraid of the unknown, they have not known, admonish bothered to tell them, how their work contributed to the overall performance of the entity. They were never told that failures are not a shaming factors but the pillars of success. Nobody gave them the courage to speak out their minds without the fear of being judged. If they knew that there was no shame in falling down, as long as you were able to getup and start again, they will never resist change. Courageous employees are the foundation for any skyscraper to be built. Acceptance of change needs right decisions, at the right time, in the right manner, by and to the right people.

If you don't involve others, you are adding to group think and could well be marinating in bias. Interview, involve, collaborate and perspective seek. Note though, that when it comes to a so-called change resistant culture, it could well be that people are in a threat state. So be mindful of how to create towards states, vs exacerbating threat states, when you are engaging stakeholders on problem solving, or fact finding around the change-resistant environment. You could do this by leveraging David Rock's SCARF model.

It's been my experience that to get true engagement from stakeholders as a leader you need to foster an culture of "win or learn" instead of "win or lose". In a community where learning from mistakes is celebrated and sharing of lessons from failure is rewarded you are likely to get genuine engagement from team members. Where the culture punishes failure and bosses are unable to describe lessons they've learned, stakeholder involvement may be nothing more than a theater of positivity.

Co-creation (letting stakeholders put their fingerprints on the potential solution) is a great way to garner buy-in and develop great solutions, but... Don't forget to prioritize your most important sponsor: the "executive sponsor". This is the senior-most leader who is ultimately accountable for the change. People will engage more easily if there is an executive sponsor who has 'legitimized' the change effort.

Again, this is why I always start with a culture audit - through the initial process of asking questions, listening and gathering information, employees feel heard. The next step I normally take is to share those findings, learnings, and recommended solutions in a transparent way to the entire organisation. A big part of this phase is creating accountability and building trust. It also creates buy-in as people feel their opinions taken on board. At this point resistance, in my experience, starts to decrease and you can start to solve for the core issues.

Looping in the stakeholders and sharing the plans with them, keeping them looped in on the progress and every small impact is important. This brings in transparency and even improves the rapport.

Buy-in rarely happens through one-way communication (e.g. an email or all hands meeting). Create forums for two-way dialog (think 'team meetings') to not only reinforce the key messages of the change, but also seek out and address concerns.

Imagine trying to design a shoe without considering the shape of the foot. It's the same with culture change. Without aligning to the very people who live and breathe that culture daily, any change will be like that ill-fitting shoe – uncomfortable and unlikely to be worn long-term. By plugging into a Culture Audit, you're essentially measuring the foot, understanding its nuances, and then crafting the shoe. This way, the changes are not just top-down directives but are co-created solutions addressing real challenges. It's how you get everyone walking in step together, towards shared success.

When it comes to communicating the benefits in a so-called change resistant culture, why not leverage self-determination theory? which has strong ties to motivation when it comes to change. How are you communicating to your audience around how what you are doing will enable them to be and feel: - Competence and Capability - Have a sense of Autonomy - How are you fostering Relatedness and Psychological Safety? You can talk about the why, the ROI and have all the elevator pitches under the sun, but if you don't talk to core human motivators whilst doing so, I kind of feel it is missing the point.

This is the piece that is usually done worst. It is not only about communicating the benefits, but the impact that it will have on the day-to-day work of people involved. Theoretically, I might agree that an organisational change would align with the vision, but in the short-term, if I will be working longer hours, then I am unlikely to be supportive.

Once you see some results, it's a good practice to have an open channel of communication wherein we can share all the benefits/improvements. This not only helps in getting the buy-in from the stakeholders but also allows you to scale up.

The easiest way to address the risks is by acknowledging them; don't act like everything is going to be smooth sailing. If it's going to be hard, call out exactly what you anticipate being hard. With change, everyone is losing something -- even with good change. Figure out what people will be "losing," whether it be a change in the dynamic of who they're working with, a fear of looking incompetent in a new role, etc. and try to address those things immediately so people feel seen. Secondly, don't try to figure out the risks alone -- it's likely that most people have a whole list of risks that they're concerned with, and addressing these and bringing them to light might help shed light on something you hadn't considered.

Every organizational change has barriers that need to be overcome. E.g., Lack of capacity, conflicting priorities, lack of skill, or limiting mindsets. By focusing on, and addressing the top barriers, you greatly increase the likelihood that the change will be successful. In

In my experience, engineers often forget that risk is ‘probability times impact’. And because of this, they can focus too much on small things that happen often…or huge things have almost no likelihood of happening. When my teams have done this, the Risk analysis leads us to addressing those items that have a moderate impact and a moderate likelihood of occurring.

Solving a problem might involve some risks. It can be related to productivity, branding, performance, or something else. The best way to handle this is to have clear communication with the stakeholders and leaders. Sharing the risks involved and your actions to minimize them openly with the business is step one.

Level 5 leaders are humble enough to hear the critical feedback…and driven enough to WANT to hear that feedback. Failing to seek feedback can mean that the team is left with a suboptimal solution…or they may even revert back to the old way. Both of these reactions can reinforce the negative perception of change.

The number one reason why culture change doesn′t work is because stakeholders are not involved. Culture change is not about doing things and seeking approval afterwards, it is about involving everyone from the start. Keep them close, co-create, and try to convert them in your personal change agents. They in the end have the power to influence their own area.

Before implementing a change, establish mechanisms to collect and respond to feedback once everything 'goes live'. A practical way to do this is to create a "change network", composed of individuals from the impacted population - this group could provide monthly feedback on how the change is being perceived, along with mitigations to risks that they see. The output can easily be shared with senior leadership as a mechanism to drive action and course corrections.

After every major step, always ask for feedback and take it on record. As per my experience, feedback is best if collected anonymously. Then work on the feedback and improve yourself.

It's also important to ensure that the success is celebrated on the team level. Leaders can have some semi-regular off-site or virtual meetings to celebrate big team and individual accomplishments, call-out within team collaboration, and contribution of the business stakeholders. For instance, when one of my teams delivered a challenging project, we had a jazz session with some pre-ordered drinks over Zoom.

There are no small achievements... celebrating small victories help to move forward... We often look to the future, but WE should look back to celebrate and value what we achieved...

Incentives often influence behaviour. Offer incentives and recognition that appeal to people's intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

It's important to approach resistance with a growth mindset, seeing it as an opportunity vs. a threat. Often this is where we stumble because we get annoyed when there is pushback. But here is where we can persevere, learn from failures, and adapt strategies to keep moving forward. Because when we embrace the idea that resistance is a natural reaction to change, we position ourselves to become more effective at navigating obstacles and finding real solutions. This allows us to pull everyone forward into the change instead of pushing the change on them. When we do this, we start to develop key problem-solving skills in how we think, how we adapt, and how we collaborate with others.

Sometimes, we set goals that are way too big. Consider having measurable goals: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals related to problem-solving. Monitor progress and hold individuals and teams accountable for achieving these goals.

I have led many change initiatives in my golden jubilee and the missing part has always been assessing the employees who will actually implement the change and the leaders who will lead it. That compatibility is seldom looked at. Most companies get overly eager to change in high gear in order to benefit from the potential gains; little do they know that speed by itself is one of the biggest factors of change resistance. Having the people ready for the change, mentally, emotionally, knowledgeably, and technologically is critical, as is the fact that pre/post readiness assessments show that the needle has moved appreciably. I have seen leaders interpret these indicators with perceptions that suits them, thus misleading the company.