What are organizational leaders to do when their change initiatives are met with open resistance? What if employee cynicism and bitterness have reached the point where some people openly cross their arms, dig in their heels, and basically proclaim, "Hell no, we won´t go!"?
Resistors And Conductors
Several rules of thumb apply when dealing with resistance. First is the need to recognize that resisters usually constitute a minority. It´s a mistake to direct 80% of your ambassadorship efforts towards 20% of the population. Focus on helping the more receptive critical mass within the organization to accept and support the initiative, and to keep it moving forward. Give vocal resisters a generous second, and even a third opportunity to get on board - but if they strike out on their third turn at bat, focus your energies elsewhere. Without coming right out and telling them so, allow them to conclude on their own that though you would much prefer to have them on board, you are perfectly prepared to set out on your journey without them. They will sooner or later find themselves in a tough "shape-up-or-ship-out" situation: instead of standing on the platform muttering about the pointless stupidity of such a journey, they will be forced to either hop aboard of their own free will, or remain behind and let the organization move on towards its destiny without them.
A second rule of thumb for dealing with resistance: employees who express emphatic resistance usually do not pose the greatest threat to the success of a change initiative. In voicing their resistance aloud, even if in anger, these people are usually telling their leaders, in effect, "I do not yet believe, as you do, that this is the right course of action for us. I would like to believe it, but you have not yet convinced me. Try again." In expressing resistance aloud, the resister is inviting dialogue. It may be noisy, challenging, even at times offensive dialogue, but at least the communication channels remain open; the potential for conversion remains alive. The louder the resistance, the greater the fear of change the resister is expressing. Resistance is almost always a plea for reassurance. The skilful ambassador of change knows how to give the required reassurance.
It is not those howling in protest who place the organization´s vision of success in greatest jeopardy. A greater threat comes from the apathetic-those who publicly nod in bland, disinterested agreement, but privately have no intention of supporting the change in any way. Their public posture is a bored, "Yes, yes, no big deal, we´ve seen this sort of thing before; we´ll see it again, nothing to get too worked up about, yawn..." These are frequently the same people who in private will attempt to discredit, or even sabotage, the whole initiative. Their relative silence discourages dialogue. They have no wish to be persuaded into adopting a different view; their only desire is to "sit things out" until this latest change effort fizzles out and is forgotten-and perhaps even to help it fizzle out that much sooner, if possible. It is up to the ambassador of change to draw these people into the very dialogue they hope to avoid: "How about you, Bernie? Haven´t heard too much from you about all this-what do you think about the whole thing?" Even more importantly, the ambassador of change must coax a commitment of support out of those who hide behind a mask of apathy, and preferably in front of plenty of peer-level witnesses: "I´m glad you don´t foresee any problems with any of this, Bernie. Does this mean I can count on you to be completely behind this whole thing along with the rest of us? We really can´t do it without your full support-can we count on you as one of our champions for this thing?" If Bernie allows himself to be labeled a "champion" (or equivalent), it will later be much more difficult for his apathy to go unnoticed. It will no longer be so easy for him to hide in the shadows. If he resists making a commitment of support, then the skilful ambassador of change has at least upgraded Bernie from passive apathy to active resistance; the channels of communication have been forced open. Where previously Bernie considered himself safely "outside" the whole debate, he now finds himself "involved" in it. For him, sabotage would now be foolhardy, since his open acknowledgement of resistance would make him a prime suspect. It means it´s probably only a matter of time before Bernie finds himself confronting that awkward "shape-up-or-ship-out" dilemma.
The final rule of thumb revolves around the encouraging fact that converted resisters often make excellent advocates. While on the one hand it´s wasteful to pour a disproportionate amount of effort into the conversion of resisters, when conversion does take place, the converted will often support the change effort with the same noisy intensity with which they originally resisted it. Every smoker knows there´s no one quite as tiresome as a reformed ex-smoker. The same assertiveness that produces strident resistance can also generate boundless enthusiasm for the very cause that originally inspired the resistance.
All Roads Lead To The Vision
An ant walking across a huge billboard bearing an image of some popular celebrity won´t be able to recognize the image. Even if this particular ant happened to be a huge fan of the celebrity in question, it cannot possibly guess, as it makes its way across a jumbled field of dots which, when viewed from a distance, combine to form a "left eye" four feet wide, that an image of the beloved celebrity is right underfoot. The image is just too big. The ant is just too close.
The ambassador of change must recognize that employees, too, are usually "too close to the action" to be able to see the "big picture" on their own. To them, the daily landscape of the workplace is just a confused jumble of tasks and hectic activities.
If someone were to lift the ant off the billboard and carry it some distance away and say, "Look, see whose face you were walking across? See the left eye? You were right there, just a little south-west of the eyebrow," the ant would have a whole different appreciation of its whereabouts and the nature of its journey. If the ant were put back in the same spot upon the billboard and allowed to continue along its way, it might even, on its own, conclude that the darker jumble of dots it encounters must be the hairline at the left temple, because there´s a vast lighter-coloured area to the south that would correspond to the ear. Suddenly the journey has become much more interesting. But before very long the dots would once again become a confusing and meaningless jumble; for the journey to remain as interesting, the ant would need regular "you are here" updates. It would need to be given frequent views of the whole billboard, with its precise present location clearly indicated.
This is one of the basic roles of the leader-as-ambassador of change: to combat resistance by providing frequent views of "the big picture" (the vision) and to indicate to employees where they are in their progress towards it. Whether through formal communication efforts, or informal stump speeches, or casual dialog; whether through highly-publicized strategic-level decisions, or through the thousands of choices made and behaviors exhibited every day, the effective leader ties everything to the vision. And not just in his or her own mind-the link is spelled out, every time. There is absolutely nothing going on in this place that does not, in one way or another, help bring us closer to the vision, and here´s how. (Or, if there is, then perhaps we´d better question whether we should be doing it at all.) Here´s how the change in office layout will help us achieve our vision. Here´s how that new policy, the new training course, even the recent layoffs are going to help bring the vision closer. The chaotic jumble of seemingly-unrelated daily problems and pressures must be transformed into meaningful parts of a larger, worthwhile whole.
The story is told of a VIP visiting the NASA complex during the Apollo program and asking a custodial worker in dirty coveralls, "What do you do here?" The worker answered, "I´m helping to put a man on the moon, sir." This particular ant knew precisely where he was on the big billboard.
In building a formal plan for achieving a vision of success, it´s appropriate for members of the leadership team to begin by considering what they might undertake to do to help the rest of the organisation better understand, and embrace, the whole effort. What will we do to demonstrate our personal determination to succeed? How will we create opportunities to deliver our stump speeches? What will we do to help employees see the big picture, and where they fit in? How will we convey our personal enthusiasm and optimism? How will we make our support for the effort dramatically visible? In short, how will we become ambassadors of change?
Customer-focus consultant Paul Levesque outlines a step-by-step process for building a customer-focused culture in his latest book Customer Service From The Inside Out Made Easy (Entrepreneur Press, 2006), available at Amazon.com and all major book retailers. To read an excerpt from the book visit www.customerfocusbreakthroughs.com). For information about customer-service workshops for your executives or employees, contact Novations Inc. 1 (800) 308-2668 or at info@novations.com
