Resisters to a change initiative are often looked on as stubborn and old guard. They are even identified as problem employees who don’t want to participate in the process. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. For most organizational cultural change initiatives that take several years to materialize, it is time well-spent for leadership engage resistors in the dialogue. They might find out the resistance reveals the passion the employee has for the organization.
When some people display resistant behavior, it can be they sense losing cultural values that are most important to them. This passion stems from seeing a crucial part of the old culture on the verge of disappearing. With a performing arts center moving into a larger and more modern venue, there was intense emotion around losing the intimacy of the small, original theater. For a hospital that had been in one location for 50 years, people were visceral about losing the personal staff-to-patient relationships. For a small, private university deciding to become a major player, it was the fear of losing one’s whole professional identity of a faculty who deeply cared about students.
These are all worthwhile values and, in each of these cases, leadership made the wise decision to keep the resistors in the conversation.
There are many reasons why individuals oppose and resist change in an organization. Sometimes it is fear, complacency or just plain inflexibility. But many times, resisters resist because they don’t want to lose core cultural values. It pays off to pay attention to these resisters.
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