Why Do People Hate Change?

Written by Jason Haines

“Innovation often originates outside existing organizations, in part because successful organizations acquire a commitment to status quo and resistance to ideas that might change it.” -Guy Kawasaki

From my experience people do not hate changes being made to their jobs or lives. What they do hate is being forced to make changes to their jobs or lives. Ever since I decided to be an advocate for Lean all I have been met with is resistance to change, but I have been successful at helping people realize that the changes being made to their jobs, or lives will help them overall. By showing them a unique way to rethink their current situation. I just seem to have a knack for being able to get people to understand why a change is needed, but most of the time it is because I do not force people into change, I like to get their buy in and in a sense sell them the reason the changes are needed and show them the added benefits to them and their everyday lives. Always make sure they know what the benefit is to them.

Why do I not like to force people to change things? One reason was I worked at the frontlines and realize that when we force people to do stuff, we will get a lot of people who will dig in and make changes ineffective or just harder to do. I was one of those people. This only will frustrate the leadership which makes them start to think people at the frontlines are lazy, ignorant, and need to be fired. Having worked in leadership I have heard this as well. And the frontline workers think likewise towards the leadership of the place. I have seen this from both sides of the line, which there should not be sides, but I digress, and people will not do the one thing that would alleviate a lot of what would make these changes much easier. They do not want to communicate with the other side.

When I talk about communication I do not mean to go out and chum it up with the boys over a few brewskis and talk about things and become familiar with people. What I mean is get out there and start build relationships with the people at the frontlines, get to know them. This is the responsibility of the leadership team. Because the first changes of any Lean initiative comes when we, the leadership team start to get to know the processes and the people on our teams. When we do not take the time to get to know these things the people that we will be leading will not be as receptive to you coming out and making changes to their jobs.

In recent years, the last 20-30 years, many people in leadership have been more apt to quickly move from position to position and not stay somewhere. Much of this has to do with money, but a lot of today’s leaders are quickly moving from position to position. And much of the time it causes for much angst between the frontline workers and the leadership teams because people do not stay in positions for very long at all. This causes leaders to come in with grandiose ideas and in a hurry to make changes, create a name for themselves and get the next big promotion. Zero relationships built and a wake of disheartened people left behind to discover a new leader, and rinse, repeat, and recycle.

Now, then you have the people at the frontline, who will dig in against that change and help at all costs. Is it because they do not want to do it? Do they feel like they are forced to do it? Do they feel like they have been deceived to many times and the new leader is just looking for a big promotion only to leave them behind? Or is it they want someone to stick around and care about them for once?

It could be any number of these questions. People at the frontlines are no different than those who are in leadership. They want to be able to become better in their life because they know it will help them provide a better life for their family. Today though many people at the frontlines have become disheartened because of they do not see any chance of improving their future and where they may be going. A lot of people have lost hope and many of our top leaders cannot seem to see this, as they just manage and force people to change thinking it is no big deal. Looking for their next big promotion when all the frontline wants is stability.

Much of what we do as leaders affects our people because as the saying goes, “attitude reflects leadership.” People were taught to respect their leaders and they should, but that does not mean that they must respect their leaders. They only must follow them. Now a great leader will try to earn the respect of the people, as I say going to the Gemba and building relationships. Getting to know the people and the processes. That way when we leaders want to make a change, we have the help of our people because they trust us and will follow us, because they know we are with and for them. We are not forcing people to change. Instead, we are changing with them.

Have you ever had your kid one day throw a fit, or drag their feet to go somewhere when you needed to be to an important meeting? How did you manage the situation? Did you make them feel as if they were a burden, give up, or use your position as a parent to make them do something? Or did you bring them along and make them feel as if they had a choice to be able to help in the decision? I, myself have been in both areas of parenting and usually the latter works much better than the former. This goes for the people working for you as well. If they feel like they are part of a team, and included in the decision-making processes, they will be more likely to help you along the way. Many managers today forget this and have issues with allowing employees to be part of the process. In my experience it comes down to they are in a hurry to make things happen.

In a hurry for the next big promotion for themselves and not for the team or the organization. This creates managers who are not really growing anyone, even themselves, because they only care about more money. So, when they try to make changes to their organization, they usually do something that eliminates jobs, automates, and is not looking at the long-term effects of their decisions. Automation is a wide area for these decisions and many times managers get a machine, which yes is promised that it will eliminate all their problems, which does not fit the process, facility, or the future. This causes frontline worker frustrations and job losses as well as frustration in the future of the organization because what was bought and put in did not fit now or in the future.

Lean helps make changes simpler, adding automation in easier, and we will discuss this over the next five weeks with our series on Why Do People Hate Change. We will show it through Napoleon Hill’s five levels of grieving, which he equates to also be present when people come up against change as well. These five levels are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As we talk about the five levels we will show where Lean can help, how we can add in automation, and the ways overcome people pushing back on changes. I hope you will enjoy.

Helping build future leaders and ambassadors while also getting people home to their families. Allowing employees to enjoy their life and their jobs. This is what Lean is about. Respect for people (Stakeholders) in all areas and in all ways. If you do not know where to start give Industrial Solutions a call to start the conversation.

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