Strategies to Reduce Change Resistance

The September 2018 ASQ Roundtable topic asks, "What are some recommended strategies or tactics to help achieve successful change management?" It’s often said that people don’t resist “change” so much as they resist “being changed.” So, the job of change management is clear: In a nutshell, you must explain why the affected people should want to change, and thereby cultivate readiness instead of resistance."

Another popular saying regarding change resistance is that the only people who like change are babies (infants). But change is constant, and the rate of change in today's world is ever increasing. A mathematical model representing change acceptance is Q x A = E, where Q is the qualitative (technical) solution, A is the acceptance of change, and E equals the effectiveness of the project.

The successful change project recognizes that the team, stakeholders, influencers and the people directly impacted by the proposed change must first understand the change and how it affects them; their reservations, concerns and resistance must be acknowledged and addressed, and they must all embrace the change.

In an article titled "The 7 Dynamics of Change", Kenneth Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, wrote that people:

• feel awkward, ill-at-ease, self-conscious or fearful about change
• focus on what they think they will have to give up
• feel alone, even if others are going through the same change
• are at different levels of readiness for change
• can handle only so much change
• are concerned they do not have enough resources to cope with the change
• will naturally revert to old behaviors if given the opportunity.

The change adoption (aka rate of diffusion) curve illustrates the impact of change readiness.

Given the variability in change effectiveness, what strategies can be deployed to improve readiness and acceptance? GE developed its Change Acceleration Process (CAP) in 1992 as part of its overall strategy to improve its competitive advantage. GE's CAP is a set of tools designed to accelerate and increase change effectiveness:

• create a shared need for the change
• understand and deal with resistance
• mobilize commitment by building an effective influence strategy
• continuous communication plan
• address both the technical and human change strategies

The high-level GE CAP Model is shown below.

In an article published by Fast Company magazine (2008), author Dan Feliciano states, "It’s not that people don’t like change… they don’t like ambiguity and punishment." Dan offers, "Organizations need to focus on creating and communicating strategies to the employees... by creating goals, objectives, measures, targets, and identifying and resourcing key initiatives for your organization and then cascading the measure and initiatives to every person throughout the organization."

Building an influence strategy not only involves the engagement of the organization's leaders and managers, but also identifying the presence of any "Keyhubs" within the ranks of its employees. A keyhub is an individual, not on the org chart, who's experience/ opinion/ insight is highly sought after and respected by peers and colleagues. "Understanding these informal networks enables leaders to align the organization with its strategic direction and move more quickly and effectively. Once you get the culture, you can execute on strategy [and change] with greater ease and efficiency", Vikas Narula (@NarulaTweets), Creator and Co-Founder of Keyhubs (@Keyhubs).

Finally, holding the gains of any change effort requires the implementing of Systems and Structures that reward desired behaviors resulting in successful results, while making it difficult and even painful (more effort) to revert to old behaviors. Desired behaviors must be modeled by the organization's leaders. Such behaviors will create the experiences necessary to instill the right beliefs leading to sustainable culture change. (Journey to the Emerald City by Roger Connors and Tom Smith).