A frustration I hear over and over again from people in management and leadership positions is how their people are 'resistant to change'. I know it can seem that way, but often, that's not what's really going on. Peter Senge said that “People don’t mind change - they don’t like to be changed”. A short statement with a lot of wisdom. People change things all the time in their own lives - change is normal. What they struggle with is change that feels done to them, rather than done with them.
And that is the key distinction at the heart of why so many change efforts don't go as intended or hoped (about 70% achieve limited results or fail).
This term 'change resistance' is almost part of our mental model of how the business world works - we expect to see it - and so perhaps we do - we've named it and then it immediately becomes a problem that needs to be tackled.
We humans are hardwired to survive, and change potentially constitutes a threat to that survival, but we also know that change can be an opportunity. The point about change is that it represents something different, perhaps unknown, maybe beyond our experience - it could be good, it could be bad - we don't know. And so, we need a moment to pause while we try to make sense of what is happening, to orient ourselves, and to work out:
That pause comes across as a hesitation - and is seen as resistance. The natural response of the manager is to take this as a 'threat to their plan' - and so respond with logical arguments, pressure, more urgency, firmer messages, tighter controls. A negative spiral ensues as uncertainty is ignored, people are rushed past sense-making, concern is interpreted as defiance, and ultimately force is applied too early; what was merely natural uncertainty often hardens to create real resistance.
Instead of immediately seeing resistance, we should learn to expect that there will be a normal human response to the unknown. It’s part of the sense-making process - and is a great opportunity for the person or team leading the change to get people signed up.
People always make decisions based on an emotion - even if there has been a considerable amount of logical or objective consideration along the way. Ensuring that people feel emotionally and psychologically safe is crucial before - and during - discussion about the logic of the changes. For most people, the issue isn’t the change itself, it's the loss of agency - the sense of being changed which implies that something is done to them, rather than done with them.
I’ve never liked the term change management, especially when it’s applied to people. Systems can be managed. Plans, budgets, risks, and timelines are all manageable. When it comes to people, we need a different approach.
When we think of an organisation, we can consider that there are 3 key elements:
So often, change initiatives focus on the systems, then the processes, and finally the people. People can't be managed into acceptance. They need to understand what’s happening and why it makes sense, and as much as possible become part of the change. And that’s a leadership task.
We need to reframe the change challenge, and so I encourage you to think of this as 'Change Leadership'.
Leading change is less about driving behaviour and more about creating the conditions in which people can make sense of what’s happening. In practice, that means:
If there’s one simple action that makes change go more smoothly, it’s to stop selling the change long enough to ask three questions - and actually listen to the answers:
Not in a town hall. Not as a formality. In real conversations.
Most 'resistance' dissolves when people feel heard and when their uncertainty is treated as legitimate rather than inconvenient.
People don’t fear change nearly as much as they fear being left in the dark.
When leaders replace pressure with curiosity, and assumptions with listening, change tends to happen more smoothly. Not because people are managed better, but because they understand what’s happening and can choose to move with it, and even become part of the change. How good is that!
Ad Futurum
Graham
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