How to Tackle a Resistance to Change

In today's article we'll tackle one of the most baffling and recalcitrant problems that the safety industry is facing today a resistance to change. Such resistance may take a number of different forms like a persistent reduction in output, or an increase in the number of workplace injuries and illness, a requests for transfer, chronic quarrels, sullen hostility, wildcat or slow down strikes, and, of course, the expression of a lot of pseudological reasons why the change will not work.

All too often when professionals, or executives encounter resistance to change, they “explain” it by quoting the same old tired cliche “People Resist Change” and never look further. Yet changes must continually occur in every industry.

This applies with particular force to the all-important “little” changes that constantly take place or changes in work methods, in routine office procedures, in the location of a machine or a desk, in personnel assignments, job titles, and use of language.

Not one of these changes makes the headlines, but in total they account for much of our increase in productivity. They are not the spectacular once-in-a-lifetime technological revolutions that involve mass layoffs or the obsolescence of traditional skills, but they are vital to business progress.

Is the safety industry forever saddled with the onerous job of “forcing” change down the throats of resistant people? My answer is No.

It's the thesis of this article, that people do not resist technical change as such and that most of the resistance which does occur is unnecessary. We'll discuss these points, among others:

1. A solution which has become increasingly popular for dealing with resistance to change is to get the people involved to “Participate” in making the change. But as a practical matter “Participation” as a device is not a good way for management to think about the problem. In fact, it may lead to trouble.

2. The key to the problem is to understand the true nature of resistance. Actually, what people resist is usually not technical change but social change in their social or professional status and human relationships that generally accompanies a technical change.

3. Resistance is usually created because of certain blind spots and attitudes which safety specialists have as a result of a lack of technical knowledge of new ideas.

4. Taking concrete steps to deal constructively with these staff attitudes. The steps include emphasizing new standards of performance for staff specialists and encouraging them to think in different ways, as well as making use of the fact that signs of resistance can serve as a practical warning signal in directing and timing technological changes.

5. Top executives can also make their own efforts more effective at meetings of staff and operating groups where change is being discussed. They can do this by shifting their attention from the mountain of facts and technical details, work assignments, and so forth, that foster a discussion of these items indicates a developing resistance and receptiveness to change.

Let us begin by taking a look at some research into the nature of resistance to change. There are two studies in particular that I would like to discuss. They highlight contrasting ways of interpreting resistance to change and of coping with it in day-to-day administration.

Is Participation Enough?

The first study was conducted by Lester Coch and John R.P. French, Jr. in a clothing factory.1 It deserves special comment because, it seems to me, it is the most systematic study of the phenomenon of resistance to change that has been made in a factory setting.

Resistance to what?

Now let us take a look at a second series of research findings about resistance to change. While making some research observations in a factory manufacturing electronic products, a colleague and I had an opportunity to observe a number of incidents that for us threw new light on this matter of resistance to change.

Social change:

What can we learn from these episodes? To begin, it will be useful for our purposes to think of change as having both a technical and a social aspect. The technical aspect of the change is the making of a measurable modification in the physical routines of the job. The social aspect of the change refers to the way those affected by it think it will alter their established relationships in the organization.

Confirmation:

This conclusion is based on more than one case. Many other cases in our research project substantiate it. Furthermore, we can find confirmation in the research experience of Coch and French, even though they came out with a different interpretation.

The Root Cause of trouble

The significance of these research findings, from safety management’s point of view, is that executives and safety experts need the devices of participation and a real understanding, in depth and detail, of the specific social arrangements that will be sustained or threatened by the change or by the way in which it is introduced.

Self-preoccupation:

All too frequently we see safety specialists who bring to their work certain blind spots that get them into trouble when they initiate change with plant operators. One such blind spot is “self-preoccupation.” The safety specialists get so engrossed in the technology of the change they are interested in promoting, that they become wholly oblivious to the different kinds of issues that may be bothering people. 

Typically The Know-how of operators is overlooked:

Another blind spot of many safety specialists is to the strengths as well as to the weaknesses of first hand production experience. We sometimes do not recognize that the production foreman and the production operator are in their own way specialists themselves with actual experience with production problems. This point should be obvious, but it is amazing how many safety specialists fail to appreciate the fact that even though they themselves may have a superior knowledge of safety technology of the production process involved, the foreman or the operators may have a more practical understanding of how to get daily production out of a group of workers and machines.

Management action

Much of the problem of resistance to change arise around certain kinds of attitudes that staff people are liable to develop about their jobs and their own ideas for introducing change. Fortunately, Safety Managers can influence these attitudes and thus deal with the problems at their source.

Broadening safety interests:

It is fairly common for safety managers to work so hard on an idea for change that they come to identify themselves with it. This is fine for the organization when the safety manager is working on the idea alone or with close colleagues; the idea becomes “his or her baby,” and the company benefits from this complete devotion to work.

Using understandable terms:

One of the problems that must be overcome arises from the fact that most employees are likely going to have an attitude with a reason why they are recommending any given change. Which can be complicated and specialized and impossible to explain to operations. It may be true that the operator would find it next to impossible to understand some of the staff safety specialists’ analytical techniques, but this does not keep them from coming to the conclusion that the safety specialists are trying to razzle-dazzle them with tricky figures and formulas. Insulting their intelligence if they do not strive to their utmost to translate their ideas into terms understandable to the operators.

New look at resistance:

Another attitude that gets safety managers into trouble is the expectation that all the people involved will resist the change. It's curious but true that if a safety manager goes into a job with the conviction that people are going to resist any new idea with blind stubbornness. People will respond just the way the safety specialist thinks they will. The process is clear: whenever employees who are supposed to buy a new idea are treated as if they were bullheaded. If employees are used to being treated in this way they will be bullheaded and resist any change!

Now Over to You:

Have you experience a Resistance to Change?

How did you respond?

Did upper management support your efforts?

Resources:

https://hbr.org/1969/01/how-to-deal-with-resistance-to-change

1. See Lester Coch and John R.P. French, Jr., “Overcoming Resistance to Change,” Human Relations, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1948, p. 512.

2. For a complete report of the study, see Harriet O. Ronken and Paul R. Lawrence, Administering Changes: A Case Study of Human Relations in a Factory (Boston, Division of Research, Harvard Business School, 1952).