Why do people resist? Is resistance something people choose? Do they have a choice or is resistance just something they “do” and can’t not do?
And what can we – as managers and knowledge strategists – do about it?
Here’s a typical situation.
I was recently party to a discussion in which a friend was advising one of her colleagues about a certain situation in the workplace. In fact – and perhaps this is why I was drawn into the conversation – it had to do with a problem in a knowledge services environment. An initiative being introduced had been designed – and proven successful in a variety of tests – to bring about better intellectual capital management for one particular activity. My friend’s colleague was having a very difficult time getting cooperation from a couple of staff members They were resisting a relatively simple process change, and they just didn’t want to go in that direction.
It wasn’t a big deal – this change being implemented – and as I listened to the discussion, I realized that it wasn’t the change that was the problem. It was the need to get people to change their behavior, to move from resistance to collaboration. Or, as Morten Hansen notes in his good book Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results, it’s not attitudes that need to change, it’s behaviors.
“Leaders often think that they need to change people’s attitudes,” Hansen writes, “to convince people that they need to change. So they give pep talks to persuade people to change their attitudes. But research points to an alternative: concentrate on changing behaviors, not attitudes.”
In my friend’s situation. it was a case of good old-fashioned resistance, pure and simple.
Here’s how we dealt with it:
First of all, as we spoke we took a good step back to talk about resistance itself – what it is and why people resist. Now I’m not a psychologist – pop or otherwise – but as we spoke we began to realize that resistance is an emotion, a feeling that people experience for one reason or another, and it does not have to have any logic or reality behind it. And it’s something managers have to deal with on a pretty regular basis.
So we thought about why the staff members were resisting, why they were having this emotional reaction. After a considerable amount of discussion, it became pretty clear that the colleague’s employees had not been invited to participate in the development of the new program, nor had they been asked to participate in any of the planning meetings or those organized around implementing the knowledge initiative. They were just handed the “done deed,” so to speak, and told to use it in their work.
The solution presented itself when we heard about all the meetings that had been required for developing the initiative. Only a select group of people had attended those meetings, with the resisting employees excluded. Although they would be expected to participate in the implementation and should have been invited somewhere along the way, they didn’t like to go to meetings. In fact, they were known for often – and very vocally – expressing their disdain for meetings (any meetings) in the workplace. They wanted to be “left alone,” as they put it. “I just want to do my work,” is how one of them described his lack of interest in going to meetings.
Aha! Seize the moment!
Our advice to my friend’s colleague: It’s too late to bring the resisting employees into the planning process for the knowledge initiative, but it’s not too late to break down their resistance. Bring them into the implementation process as collaborating players, perhaps as “team leads” (or some such) for some part of the implementation.
And meetings will be required, so give in a little, we suggested. Don’t call them “meetings.” Set them up as “collaborative opportunities” for the knowledge leaders tasked to implement the new KM activity.
“You’ll be surprised,” we my friend and I advised, “how attitudes will change as behavior changes – admittedly with a little push from you.”
I love this insight. I’ve also been on the other side – being very skeptical of a change and having someone try to convince me to want to do it. And in those cases, if the organization or my boss really wants the change I’ll just say “Please, just show me how to do it and let me do it. But let’s not waste time and energy on changing my what I think.”
Resistance to change is attributed to fear to learn new skills, new ideas and new operations and in other cases fear to share what one know least they become irrelevant. However, there is need to willingly change before systems force change.
Guy, Spot on! We need to involve people. Or as I often say “we need to stop doing things to people and start to work together with them.” See this short video clip of mine from 2005
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/media-player?open&g=BLU+Lessons&mf=L001885
best wishes David
Guy, Good post.
In the KM Institute certification programs (www.kminstitute.org) we teach an additional thought, often underrated. Understand the resistor’s WIIFM (What’s in it for Me?)
Cheers, Douglas
The important point is that the individual is the most important asset in the company and unless and until s/he feels their importance, resistance from their side is bound to come. Make people feel that their contribution is of utmost value to the organisation. Change agents should see the resistance as a challenge or opportunity rather than a problem.
Elizabeth Mwarage at the SLA Knowledge Management Division Group at LinkedIn wrote:
People will want to support a project they are invited to participate and contribute to….this is emotional and psychological too..the element of feeling needed useful and wanted plays a role here. There is the filter too on who to involve – some people are naturally project stalkers.
John Thorn at the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on LinkedIn wrote:
For me … it’s a choice between …
1. Helping people make better … positive choices about their own lives and the people around them
Or
2. Helping a small minority of people get large numbers of people to do what the minority want them to do.
I for one … choose option 1.
So I am committed to finding ways to help people improve their ability to make positive choices about their own lives … to be more emotionally self-reliant and less worried about what other people think.
Cheers Jon
Anne-Marie IJsenbruk at the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group at LinkedIn wrote:
Like many new things – and I’ve some experience with web 2.0 concerning resistance – you see that workers and management in companies are afraid for loosing control, are afraid of making mistakes, of a new load of information etc. I also see that many companies think that cultural or workmanship changes doesn’t need any guidance because workers can change themselves. And also the way you choose that changes in approach will be realized, is important. People want to be tempted and included in changes and last but not least: changes can’t be realized only from top down, there also must be a strong bottom up movement for changes.
Albert Simard at the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group at LinkedIn wrote:
IMO – Resisting change vs. adaptive behavior is one of a list of tendencies that are innate to individuals. For example, most people prefer:
* Synthesis or analysis
* Structured thinking or unstructured thinking
* Detail or strategy
* Team play or individualism.
The list goes on, but my main point is that a person is who thay are. Trying to force them to be what they are not usually results in mediocre performance. I’ve seen structured thinkers bring an innovative committee to its knees and unstructured thinkers bored to death with petty details that are necessary to implement a program.
And like attracts like. So one finds that people who work for the government tend to be structured thinkers who focus on the details of getting it right. Scientists tend to be individualists because that’s the nature of their reward system (although the incresing complexity of science if forcing that to change). Entrepreneurs quickly get bored with the status quo and are forever seeking change, but they are often unable to implement something sustainable.
Given that most western business leaders don’t understand the eastern philosophy that success sows the seeds of ultimate failure, what worked in the past is what got them here and the need to change usually becomes aparent only after the tsunami is upon them and it is often too late to change.
I guess it’s just basic human nature.
Posted by Yang Lin at the Gurteen Management Community Group on LinkedIn:
Well, Albert, I think it is much more complicated than misperception. When I see this, I try to think from two main aspects: problems resulting from KM attributes, and those from non- km factors. KM has it’s own theoretical bottleneck. Intellectual capital research is not moving as fast as expected, but more researchers are joining in. Non- KM- related can be divided into socio- cultural and non- socio- cultural factors. Perception and knowledge, as individual factors, are two non- socio- cultural factors.
Individual resistance, as another individual factors, can be caused by all these groups of factors mentioned above. To resolve specific issues, context should be analyzed.
Love David’s video – absolutely right, you can’t “make” people do anything. I know the APQC and others emphasize the point that KM practices need to be embedded in the workflow, as part of the daily routine. If they’re above or outside the flow, people just won’t do them. It’s “extra” work that way.
One great takeaway from KM World 2011 came from Kathy Valderrama at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland. Along with emphasizing that KM has to be embedded in the flow, she said “make KM fun,” and provided some specific examples. She described a couple different events that they had put on, with little or no budget or planning, to encourage participation. One was a “Collaborama,” in which they provided food, and set up checkpoints for people to test drive various collaborative tools like blogs, wikis and Communities of Practice. 375 people attended the event, and when they asked for volunteers to pilot the tools in their jobs, 75 people signed up.
A second example they put on was along the lines of a dating competition show – “Find your Collaboration Match,” which they seem to have imbued with a lot of humor, and were able to familiarize people with what the different tools could do. They also set up a scavenger hunt challenge within the various tools.
I don’t know if I could be nearly as creative as it sounds like Ms. Valderrama was (and on a shoestring budget, no less!), but the idea to keep it fun is quite valuable. We can get so caught up in the purpose and benefits and jargon, etc. of KM, that we leave out or forget about the people factor. Focusing on fun is a quick way to bring that back in, and necessarily gets people involved in the process.
Also at KM World, one of the presenters (whose name escapes me) said, “Everyone listens to the same radio station – WIIFM. What’s in it for me?” (as Doug Weidner also mentioned above)
Making sure to involve all stakeholders from the beginning is key, but even if you forget that part, incorporate involvement, and maybe even a little fun, into the training and deployment, and you may be able to win interest that way, too.
A little addendum – I just found this APQC white paper, “Making KM Fun,” which includes better details about the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s efforts, and others. http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-base/download/62467/a:1:%7Bi:1;s:1:
Albert Simard at the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on LinkedIn writes:
Resistance to change is as old as human history. It is much more deeply seated in the human psyche than misperception. It covers all domains of human activity – not just KM. Resolving KM-specific problems, although a necessary first step, will only remove the surface to expose more fundamental issues.
Several recent postings at the SLA Knowledge Management Division LinkedIn Group:
Neil Olonoff: People resist when they come into something late and ill-informed. If you involve stakeholders early, and solicit their opinions, resistance and adoption reluctance is somewhat reduced.
Maureen Coletta: In many software implementation projects that I’ve been involved in (SharePoint, etc), I have found two factors behind resistance (not that there aren’t more)… One is fear of the new with lack of confidence or support for learning the new process; and two is being overworked and not having time to learn the new process or software. This despite the fact that once the time is taken to learn, in the end, the job will be easier. I believe managers can take steps to overcome these factors.
Abdul Jaleel Tharayil: I agree with the comments above. Nevertheless, I haven’t seen any “single factor” that’s resisting change. Instead, I’ve seen many different factors contributing to the overall scheme of “resistance to change”. However, the important factor that I’ve seen is, those people who are resistant to change don’t think that they are resisting the change, rather they think they are pro-change folks. To me, this is one the major factors resisting the “change” an organisation is seeking.
Stephanie Altbier, MSLS, ERMp: Maureen, I agree with your statement that resistance can exist with individuals who are in positions of influence, and the challenge is to continue conversations with those individuals. It is important to show how the change can produce more efficient productivity and improve the bottom line. Every decision in business is about money.
My reference point was about a manager who did not prepare the team for change, and there was a huge backlash by the team. I think if the manager had educated the team about the upcoming change and explained why it was necessary, the reaction would have been more positive.
Maureen Coletta: Hi Stephanie, Sounds like you have a lot of experience with handling this type of resistance. It’s a good skill to have and I appreciate you sharing this with us — because I do find it to be the biggest issue for implementing new projects such as a knowledge management solution.
Probably your example is the more common one — a manager that doesn’t prioritize this preparation and faces a backlash. My reference point was a slightly different case, where some managers were the source of the backlash, despite efforts to get their buy in and understanding of the benefits in advance. It just shows how we have to find many ways to deal with change and resistance.
Continuing the discussion on the LinkedIn SLA Knowledge Management Group, on March 2, 2012, Aman Kumar Jha wrote:
Implementation of any new knowledge product has acceptability issue in every organizational set up. People resist even after they are involved in the stakeholder consultation process. This is very common human behavior in accepting any new initiative easily. However, there could be some other factors in their changing behavioral pattern also. Still a leader’s role becomes crucial here in making them feel important part of the process. Change in feeling may lead to change in behavior and everything may become alright then.
On March 7, 2012 Monica Leal wrote:
I agree with many of you in that the single most important thing is to find a way to make people part of the planning and process. In my experience people need to understand why change is happening, what will change and how it will impact their workflow. These are questions that I prepare for when implementing a new system or workflow within my company. I like to work with scenarios as much as possible to customize my answers to different needs and also to build more empathy for the implementers. I also create support materials that can engage all learning styles (oral, aural, visual) and try my best to make myself more accessible in times of change because even if people don’t have anything to say or ask it is always psychologically comforting to have someone there if a need should arise.
On March 8, 2012, Maureen Coletta wrote at the LinkedIn SLA Knowledge Management Group:
This is a great discussion since resistance does exist, as Aman correctly points out (even after people are involved). I think sometimes it takes more time for some people to get used to a newly implemented process — so it may be good to take a second round or attempt at involving people (even if you think you did it early on).
Earl Smith posted the following on the LinkedIn SLA Knowledge Management Group:
As I recall from my change management training, there are three broad categories of people you will encounter in any change process:
1. Early Adopters
2. Wait and Seers
3. Never Gonna Changers
The Early Adopters will enthusiastically embrace the change, Wait and Seers will get on-board once they see that the initiative really is going somewhere and the Never Gonna Changers are going to have to be sent to greener pastures or really forced to change by the leadership of the organization.
We humans are creatures of habit. Much of what we do every day is pure habit according to the following book:
http://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/
Resistance is natural. And unless you are encountering the Borg, rarely futile. In fact, the Never Gonna Changers are often also actively working to sabotage the change initiative, so they should get even more attention than the cooperative factions.
Of course, all bets are off if the intiative is only seen to be the “flavor of the month”. I remember how much I laughed when I first heard about Executive ADHD, but it’s so true.