{"id":1513,"date":"2012-05-05T10:47:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-05T10:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2012-05-05T10:47:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-05T10:47:26","slug":"resistance-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=1513","title":{"rendered":"Resistance to Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many people who are passionate about improvement become frustrated when they encounter resistance-to-change.<\/p>\n

It does not matter what sort of improvement is desired – safety, delivery, quality, costs, revenue, productivity or all of them.<\/p>\n

The natural and intuitive reaction to meeting resistance is to push harder – and our\u00a0experience of the physical world\u00a0has taught us that if\u00a0we apply enough pressure at the right place then resistance will be overcome\u00a0and\u00a0we will move forward.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately\u00a0we sometimes discover that we are pushing against an\u00a0immovable object and even our maximum effort is futile – so we give up and label it as “impossible”.<\/p>\n

Much of Improvement Science appears counter-intuitive at first\u00a0sight and the challenge of resistance is no different.\u00a0 The counter-intuitive response to feeling resistance is to\u00a0pull back, and that is exactly what works better. But why does it work\u00a0better? Isn’t that just giving up and giving in? How can that be better?<\/p>\n

To explain the rationale\u00a0it is necessary to\u00a0examine the nature of resistance\u00a0more closely.<\/p>\n

Resistance to change\u00a0is an emotional reaction to an unconsciously perceived threat that is translated into a conscious decision, action and\u00a0justification: the response.\u00a0The range of verbal responses\u00a0is large,\u00a0as illustrated in the caption, and the range of non-verbal responses\u00a0is just as large.\u00a0 Attempting to deflect or defuse all of them is impractical,\u00a0ineffective and leads to a\u00a0feeling of frustration and futility.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0negative emotional\u00a0reaction we call resistance<\/em> is non-specific\u00a0because that is how our emotions work –\u00a0and it is triggered as much\u00a0by the way<\/strong> the change is presented as by\u00a0what<\/strong> the change is.<\/p>\n

Many change “experts” recommend\u00a0\u00a0the\u00a0better method of “driving” change\u00a0is\u00a0selling-versus-telling<\/em> and recommend learning psycho-manipulation techniques to achieve it – close-the-deal sales training for example. Unfortunately this strategy can create\u00a0a psychological “arms race” which can escalate just as quickly and lead to the same outcome:\u00a0an\u00a0 emotional battle and psychological casualties. This outcome is often\u00a0given the generic label of\u00a0“stress”.<\/p>\n

An alternative approach is to regard resistance behaviour as multi-factorial\u00a0and one model\u00a0separates the non-specific resistance\u00a0response\u00a0into separate categories:\u00a0Why Do<\/em> – Don’t Do\u00a0– Can’t Do – Won’t Do<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Why Do<\/strong> response is valuable feedback because is says “we do not understand the purpose of the proposed change<\/em>” and it is not unusual for proposals to be purposeless. This is sometimes called “meddling”. \u00a0This is fear of the unknown.<\/p>\n

The Don’t Do\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>is valuable feedback that is saying “there is a risk with this proposed change – an unintended negative consequence that may be greater than the intended positive outcome<\/em>“.\u00a0 Often it is very hard to explain this\u00a0NoNo reaction because it is the output of an unconscious\u00a0thought process that operates out of awareness. It just doesn’t feel good. And some people are better at spotting the risks – they prefer to wear the\u00a0Black Hat – they are called skeptics. \u00a0This is fear of failure.<\/p>\n

The Can’t Do<\/strong> is also valuable feedback that is saying\u00a0“we get the purpose and we can see the problem and the benefit of a change – we just cannot see the path that links the two because it is blocked by something<\/em>.” This reaction is often triggered by an unconscious recognition that some\u00a0form of collaborative working will be required but the cultural context is low on respect and trust. It can also just be a manifestation of\u00a0a knowledge, skill or experience gap – the “I don’t know how to do” gap.\u00a0Some people habitually adopt the\u00a0Victim role – most are genuine and do not know how.<\/p>\n

The Won’t Do<\/strong> response is also valuable feedback that is saying “we can see the purpose, the problem, the benefit, and the path but we won’t do it because we don’t\u00a0trust you<\/em>“. This\u00a0reaction is\u00a0common in a\u00a0low-trust culture where manipulation, bullying and\u00a0game playing is the observed and expected behaviour. The role being adopted here is the Persecutor role – and the psychological discount is caring for others. Persecutors lack empathy.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0common theme here is that all resistance-to-change\u00a0responses represent valuable feedback\u00a0and explains why the better reaction to\u00a0resistance is to stop\u00a0talking and start listening because\u00a0to make progress will require using the feedback to diagnose what components or resistance are present. This is necessary because each category\u00a0requires a different approach.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0example Why Do<\/strong> requires making the both problem and the purpose explicit;\u00a0Don’t Do\u00a0<\/strong>requires\u00a0exploring the fear and bringing to awareness what is fuelling it; Can’t Do<\/strong> requires\u00a0searching for the\u00a0skill gaps and filling them; and Won’t Do<\/strong> requires\u00a0identifying the\u00a0trust-eroding beliefs, attitudes and\u00a0behaviours and making it safe to talk about them.<\/p>\n

Resistance-to-change is generalised as a\u00a0threat when in reality it represents an opportunity to learn and to improve\u00a0– which is what Improvement Science is all about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many people who are passionate about improvement become frustrated when they encounter resistance-to-change. It does not matter what sort of improvement is desired – safety, delivery, quality, costs, revenue, productivity or all of them. The natural and intuitive reaction to meeting resistance is to push harder – and our\u00a0experience of the physical world\u00a0has taught us … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Resistance to Change”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32,42,43,45,46,47,48,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4n-chart","category-productivity","category-how","category-why","category-what","category-teach","category-transactional-analysis","category-trust","category-victimosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}