Resistance to change

The literature on change shows that resistance is considered one of the biggest barriers to
successful implementation of organizational changes, yet ultimately for an organization to
change, it is essential that employees of the organization to also change. Thus employee
cooperation with organizational change efforts is indisputably connected to either the
ultimate success or failure of a change initiative. Resistance to can be defined as the lack of
enthusiasm, commitment and acceptance of change by members of an organization. Erwin
and Garman (2010) posit that resistance is a multi –dimensional concept involving how
individuals behave in response to change (behavioural dimension), what they think about
the change (cognitive dimension), and how they feel about the change (affective
dimension). Resistance to change can be categorized into these three general forms:

1. Revolt: an explicit and active form of ideological confrontation

2. Withdrawal: a form of passive resistance to what is seen as the oppression of work.

3. Discreet Resistance: One goes through the motions. It is this last form of resistance,
which is less blatantly obvious, and more implicit, everyone accepts the position in practice
because everyone is satisfied with the status quo. This is not explicit resistance (as in
conventional revolts), or a mental pulling-out from the professional sphere (as in
withdrawal).

Employees generally find ways of resisting change. Audia and Biron (2007) point to the fact
that even when employees are shown data confirming the need for change, they will
counter them with their own superior data suggesting that all is well with the organization.
Resistance can be overt, implicit, immediate or deferred. Overt and immediate resistance
involve spontaneous reactions such as complaint, work slowdown while implicit or deferred
resistance involve more subtle reactions that are more difficult to see and usually prolonged
e.g. loss of loyalty to the organization, increase errors or mistakes, among others. A change
may produce what appears to be only a minimal reaction at the time it is initiated, but then
resistance surfaces weeks, months or even years later. Alternatively, reactions to change
can build up and then explode in response that turns totally out of proportion to the change
action it follows.
For Spector (2010) employees resistance could be traced to satisfaction with the status quo,
perception of change as a threat, believe that the cost of change outweighs the benefit,
believe that top management’s mishandling of the process and conviction that the change
effort is not likely to succeed. Empirical evidence reveal that organizational inertia, the
tendency of an organization to resist change and maintain the status quo is a major reason
for their inability to response to changes in its environment (Hannan and Freeman 1999).
This is because resistance to change lowers an organization’s effectiveness and reduces its
changes of survival.

According to Greiner (1972) resistance or inertia to change can be traced to organizational,

group and individual factors. At the organization level, power and conflict, differences in
functional orientation, mechanistic structures and organizational culture may work to
induce resistance to change. At the functional level, the traditional differences in the
perception and orientation of different functions and divisions increase inertia to change.
Mechanistic structures foster resistance to change by its tall hierarchy, centralized decision
making and the standardization of behavior through rules and precedences. People who
work within a mechanistic structure are expected to act in certain ways and do not develop
the capacity to adjust their behavior to changing conditions (Jones 2010).

If organizational change disrupts taken – for – granted values and norms and forces people
to change what they do and how they do it, an organizations culture will cause resistance to
change. Most often values and norms are so strong that even when the environment is
changing and it is clear that a new strategy needs to be adopted, managers cannot change
because they are commitment to the way they presently do. At the group level, group
norms, cohesiveness and group think act as impediments to change. Group members will
resist change that will alter or change strongly held beliefs or norms, negatively affect its
cohesiveness and group think may increase escalation of commitment to wrong behaviours
and actions due to its cohesiveness. Individuals may resist change when they feel uncertain
and insecure about what its outcome will be. Negatively behaviours such as absenteeism
and uncooperative attitudes on the part of employees may work to delay or slow the
change process.
Robbins and Judge (2009) support the view that resistance to change may come from
individual or organizational sources. Individual sources include: habit, security, economic
factors, fear of the unknown and selective information processing while organization wise,
resistance to change comes from structural inertia, limited focus of change, group inertia,
threat to expertise, threat to established power relationships and threat to established
resource allocations. Hullman (1995) lists the following the causes for individual resistance
to change;

 Individuals may be satisfied with the status quo. Because their needs are being met,
they may view any potential change as negative
 Individuals may view change as a threat, fearing it will adversely affect them in some
significant way
 Individuals may understand that change brings both benefits and costs but feel that the
costs far outweigh the benefits
 Individuals may view change as potentially positive, but may still resist because they
believe that the organization’s management is mishandling the change process
 Individuals may believe in the change effort but still believe that change is not likely to
succeed.
Kotter and Schlesinger (2008) identify five main sources of resistance to organizational
change; parochial self interest, misunderstanding, lack of trust, different assessments
and low tolerance for change.
PAROCHIAL SELF INTEREST
People resist organizational change when they think that they will lose something of
value as a result. To this end they focus on their interest at the expense of the
organization.
MISUNDERSTANDING AND LACK OF TRUST
Misunderstandings about the implications cost and benefits could motivate resistance to
change. This is more in organizations where there is lack of trust between employees
and managers.
DIFFERENT ASSESSMENTS
 Individuals resist organizational change due to differences in assessment of the
situation. Variations in information that groups work with often leads to differences in
analyses, which in turn can led to resistance.
LOW TOLERANCE FOR CHANGE
People also resist change because they fear they will not be able to develop the new
skills and behavior that will be required of them. People also sometimes resist
organizational change to save face; to go along with the change would be, they think, an
admission that some of their previous decisions or beliefs were wrong. Or they might
resist because of peer group, pressure or because of a supervisor’s attitude.

The following strategies have been identified in literature for managing resistance to
change:

1. Education and Communication: Education and communication reduce resistance to

change by ensuring that full facts of the process are communicated as well as clearing
any misunderstanding. However, its primary role is to help “sell the need for change”.
The success of any change effort is primarily determined by the way it is sold. Change is
more likely when the necessity of change is packaged properly. poor solution and great
consumption of time. .

2 Participation: This is based on the assumption that employees who participate in planning
and implementing a change are better able to understand the reasons for the change. The
opportunity to express one’s ideas and assume the perspective of others increases the
chances of employees’ support for the change,.

3 Facilitation and support: there are a lot of supportive efforts to reduce resistance to
change. When employees fear and anxiety are high, counseling and therapy, new-skills
training or short paid leave of absence may facilitate adjustment. The disadvantage is that it
is time- consuming, expensive and its implementation offers no assurance of success .

4 Manipulation and cooptation: Manipulation refers to convert influence attempts. It come

in forms of twisting and distorting facts to make them appear more attractive, withholding
undesirable information and creating false rumours to get employees to accept a change.
Cooptation is a form of both manipulation and participation. It seeks to buy off the leaders
of resistance group by giving them a key role in the change decision. Usually the leaders are
consulted and made to endorse change decisions. Both are relatively easy means of gaining
support for change. However, it is prone to backfire when the targets discover that they are
being used or tricked.

Selecting people who accept change – empirical evidence supports the belief that
personality traits such as openness to experience, positive attitude toward change,
willingness to take risks and flexibility are positively related to ability to accept and adapt to
change. Studies of managers in the USA Europe and Asia have confirmed that change
programmes have been facilitated in organization through the selection of individuals who
scored high on positive self concept and high risk tolerance.

Putting Resistance to Good Use

Positively, resistance provides a degree of stability and predictability to behavior as well as a

source of functional conflict. In stressing the positive impact of resistance, Ford and Ford
(2010), argue that resistance can be a valuable tool in the successful accomplishment of
change. To achieve this, managers will have to change the negative perception of resistance
as an impediment to change and focus on engaging it. Similarly managers have to view
resistance as a form of feedback which provides valuable information that may not be
available any other way. By being willing to consider resistance as useful feedback,
managers can reshape specific aspects of a change, thereby increasing the likelihood of
success. Ford and Ford (2010), posit that in the early stages of change, any talk even
negative or adverse talk, might be the only thing that keeps a change proposal alive.
Although, managers may consider complaints, criticisms and objections to be forms of
resistance, a proliferation of complaints or a highly charged dialogue can serve a useful
function by making more people aware of the change. Thus information available from
resistance behaviours can become a critical factor in the ultimate success of change. Rather
than trying to suppress or eliminate negative reactions during the early stages of change,
change managers may want to let these reactions happen and even interact with them to
ensure they serve a useful function (Ford and Ford 2010).
Change managers do not need to overcome or eliminate all resistance as some it is valuable.
This is because the anger or fears that some people have about organizational change does
not necessarily mean they are against the entire change, believe management is
incompetent, or suspect the plan is to cover for something nefarious. Rather, than trying to
remedy or ignore negative responses to change proposal, it can be useful to take a closer
look at the specifics of the objections and use them to improve the change or the
implementation process. Additionally, resistance engagement should be used as a
participatory management approach to managing change.