Resistance

Is today your first day on the job? If not, then you've experienced change in the workplace. It’s inevitable that you will experience some sort of change. Your mind and body may be reeling from the stress associated with change, and while you may not be able to dictate what changes will occur and when you can control how you handle and adapt to them. Reacting badly and drawing out the acceptance process can have a very negative effect on you and on your family.

Even the best-planned changes can cause stress, unrest, and resistance. Are you recognizing the different reactions to change from your direct reports or are you constantly creating stumbling blocks to progress?

It is important to understand the reaction of employees responses to change over time and to understand how to reduce resistance to change through managing change processes. Resistance to change has been recognized as one of the important factors that can influence the success of organizational changes, including new technology innovation, new policies, and new organizational structure. Maurer (1996) indicated that half to two-thirds of all major corporate change efforts fail, and resistance is the little-recognized but critically important contributor to that failure.

Therefore, your employee’s attitude towards change comes from his or her perception of the outcomes of a change, compared with the individual's goals and values. Any manager who plans to introduce change should recognize that some employees will welcome the change, some will resist or resent it, and others will be neutral.??

What should you do if your employees resist or resent it? If you are the type of leader that welcomes discomfort in a non-threatening way then that is amazing. Reason? If your direct reports are comfortable enough to speak to you then it eliminates the water cooler talk.?

You can’t address what you don’t know!?Change is destined to happen or your company will fail. We all can name a few. With that in mind, please welcome the resistance conversation. Without your teams how can you truly effectively have change??