50 Reasons Why We Cannot Change … but why?

A while ago I posted a simple picture (the headline graphic for this article) with 50 reasons why we cannot change which you can see here … https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6381381984496775168. These reasons were first published by the Fast Company way back in 1993 btw) … https://www.fastcompany.com/55009/50-reasons-why-we-cannot-change). As at going to press with this article that post has had in excess of 4,500 views and an engagement rate of 1.6%.

The thing that struck me about the original Fast Company post was that it is some 25 years old and, as people so rightly commented … things haven’t changed much have they!

I did actually publish an article in 2014 called “Change … NO not in my backyard!” but only got 200 views, a few likes and a couple of comments … hey ho that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Anyway in my inimitable style I thought I would first take a look at what people are saying today about this subject and see how they compare with the original 50 reasons … like I said in my previous article “Keep Calm Just Google It” … so I did and here are the results:

Page 1 of Google gave me the usual “numbered list” offenders e.g.:

• Top 12 Reasons Why People Resist Change
• 8 Reasons Why People Resist Change
• 12 Reasons Why Employees Resist Change in the Workplace
• Ten Reasons People Resist Change
• 7 Reasons Why People Resist Change! – Explained!

Following a bit of “quick & dirty” analysis of the 47 reasons contained in the above, the same old ones that we all know and love rose to the surface (now there’s a surprise):

• Fear of the unknown & emotional turmoil.
• Changes to routines & loss of control.

Next up were:

• Bad and/or lack of communication.
• Uncertainty & insecurity.
• Lack of reward systems.

Followed by:

• Climate of trust/mistrust.
• Change saturation & rapidity of change.
• Organisation & office politics.

Now tell us something we don't know because this is not news to us change professionals is it!

So I continued my journey to see what else I could find but tbh I wasn’t quite sure of what I was looking for but here is what I found of interest …

Find 1

An article by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey published in the Harvard Business Review way back in 2001 called “The Real Reason People Won’t Change”.

The reasons I found the article of interest were …

Reason 1 – an extract from the article states “Resistance to change does not reflect opposition, nor is it merely a result of inertia. Instead, even as they hold a sincere commitment to change, many people are unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden competing commitment.”

“Unwittingly” being the operative word.

Reason 2 – another extract states “People with the most sincere intentions often unwittingly create for themselves Sisyphean tasks. And they are almost always tremendously relieved when they discover just why they feel as if they are rolling a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again. Even though uncovering a competing commitment can open up a host of new concerns, the discovery offers hope for finally accomplishing the primary, stated commitment.”

“Sisyphean”! Had to look that one up … “denoting a task that can never be completed.”

And yes there’s that word again … “unwittingly”.

Reason 3 – the “Diagnostic Test for Immunity to Change” a tool used showing the most important steps in diagnosing immunity to change and uncovering employees’ competing commitments and unearthing their big assumptions.

Interestingly this article featured heavily on the first couple of pages of Google and indeed was regurgitated in 2017 by Itamar Goldminz on medium.com. The reason I mention this is because I like his “in a nutshell” quote …

“Rather than try to modify existing behaviours by tackling them head-on, we need to adopt a deeper and more indirect approach. We need to first identify the hidden commitments that drive them, then uncover the big assumptions on which they are based, and finally design safe, modest experiments that can help us test those assumptions and reduce them from absolute truths to more refined statements that only hold true in specific circumstances. Only then, can we let go of some of our existing hidden commitments and drive sustainable, long-lasting change.”

Find 2

Another interesting article from Apr 12, 2016 called “Is “You Can’t Change People” True?” from Jeremy E Sherman Ph.D. on Psychology Today.

Reasons I found the article of interest were because of the following extracts …

• “I now believe we can change people including their emotions and often by reasoning with them.”
• “People aren’t one-trick ponies. They have repertoires of behaviours. How we interact with others can change which behaviours within their repertoires they present. If someone is patient here and impatient there, how we interact with them may change whether they’re patient or impatient with us.”
• “It may be therapeutic to declare that all people are unchangeable. It may help us temper our tendency to try to change people. But it’s not accurate. Rather it’s us trying to change ourselves, to get ourselves to stop trying to change people. You can’t, won’t and shouldn’t stop. You will continue to place bets on how to persuade people to be different from how they are.”

There are some really interesting perspectives in this article.

Find 3

Another find was an article by Elizabeth Svoboda on June 27, 2017 published by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley called “Why Is It So Hard to Change People’s Minds?”

Reasons I found the article of interest were because of the following extracts …

• “Most of us have a strong drive to hold on to pre-existing beliefs and convictions, which keep us anchored in the world. When your stance on controversial issues both cements your group identity and plants you in opposition to perceived enemies, changing it can exact a high personal toll.”
• “In most situations, viewing your own choice through rose-coloured glasses is a sensible way of ensuring you stay happy with your decision. But this outlook also skews your perception, meaning that even when you learn eye-opening new information, you may not feel alarmed enough to reconsider your views.”
• “Research bears out the idea that arguers’ outward insistence may be inversely related to their actual conviction.”

Find 4

Moving on my next find was an article by Elizabeth Colbert dated February 2017 published by the New Yorker called “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds”.

Reasons I found the article of interest were because of the following extracts …

• “Consider what’s become known as “confirmation bias,” the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.”
• “Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs””
• “Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.”
• “People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people.”

There are a lot of research outcomes highlighted in this article with some really interesting results.

Find 5

Following naturally on from the above I came across this article “Facts Don’t Change People’s Minds. Here’s What Does” written by Ozan Varol on Sep 8, 2017 for Heleo which discusses the issue of “confirmation bias” and suggests a few ways to overcome it …

• “Give the mind an out … The key is to trick the mind by giving it an excuse. Convince your own mind (or your friend) that your prior decision or prior belief was the right one given what you knew, but now that the underlying facts have changed, so should the mind.”
• “Your beliefs are not you … I changed my vocabulary to reflect this mental shift. At conferences, instead of saying, “In this paper, I argue . . .,” I began to say “This paper argues . . .” This subtle verbal tweak tricked my mind into thinking that my arguments and me were not one and the same.”
• “Build up your empathy muscle … Humans operate on different frequencies. If someone disagrees with you, it’s not because they’re wrong, and you’re right. It’s because they believe something that you don’t believe. The challenge is to figure out what that thing is and adjust your frequency.”
• “Get out of your echo chamber … Make a point to befriend people who disagree with you. Expose yourself to environments where your opinions can be challenged, as uncomfortable and awkward as that might be.”
• ”In the end, it takes courage and determination to see the truth instead of the convenient.”

Interestingly one of the things it states in the article is “If you have any doubts about the power of the confirmation bias, think back to the last time you Googled a question. Did you meticulously read each link to get a broad objective picture? Or did you simply skim through the links looking for the page that confirms what you already believed was true? And let’s face it, you’ll always find that page, especially if you’re willing to click through to Page 12 on the Google search results.”

Thinking about my own use of Google is that what I have been doing … finding information that confirms what I already believed in? I’ll give this some thought.

And the upshot of all this is?

Earlier in this article I said “but tbh I wasn’t quite sure of what I was looking for” … well I think I did found something that I had not fully considered before but of course you may have done. 

The key takeaways for me are:

1. As in my research for my previous article, I have been enlightened and have learned things again. I have always thought that if you simply provide people with information, communicate and engage with them that was enough to reduce resistance but, as can be seen from the above, it’s not quite as easy as that.
2. As Change Managers we have a mountain to climb when it comes to understanding people and what “makes them tick”. Clearly we need to delve into the psyche of the human mind and address all of the inherent preconceived ideas and beliefs that have been ingrained over many years. But this is easier said than done especially when you are dealing with many impacted stakeholders who you have to deal with collectively rather than individually.
3. The two key phrases from this article that stand out for me are … “a strong drive to hold on to pre-existing beliefs and convictions” and “the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs” … this is where it’s at for me and what represents the challenge for us.

A thought … but what I have done has worked in the past … maybe that was by more luck than judgement!

And finally as always …

I would be interested in your input, getting your points of view and of course answering your questions about the contents of this article ... I look forward to hearing from you.