Abstract
Many people are agreeing that resistance is the last thing management
wants during change process. In many instances, resistance has caused dramatic
chaos and uncertainties which may bring the change into disaster or worse
collapsing the whole organisation. Though, many theorist are now trying to
respond to those resistances more objectively, many still believe resistants
are everything but helpful. This paper is trying to collect information from
different literatures, journals, white papers or books from those who were
trying to respect resistants as being part of change process, better playing
important and constructive roles in the whole process. Various opinions and
different responses to resistance have been collected from the past days and
now with one main aim: Accepting resistants as a productive aspect and
rewarding point to the change itself.
Resistance
Initially, resistance has been understood as an
unfavourable thing – a harmful problem that must be immediately resolved in
anyway in order to achieve a successful change. This theory has been widely
cast in the early days and many of management experts were agree that
resistance will bring nothing but unconstructive consequences to management.
Even though various studies have been conducted and a better knowledge about
resistances has been achieved, regrettably they were lack of support from many
people especially in management level. Waddell in her journal Resistance: a constructive tool for change
management (1998) was trying to analyse this issue in a more constructive
way and in objective manner. Waddell found that resistance to change has long
been renowned as a negative factor that may influence the success of any change
processes. Her discovery is unsurprisingly supported by many experts such as
McGuire in her journal How to manage
change (2003), Mabin in Harnessing
resistance: using theory of constrains to assist change management (2001),
Teare in Learning from change (2002),
Karyn in her case study identifying
resistance in managing change (2002), Deutsch in How to Handle Resistance to Change (2002) and Dym in his PhD paper Resistance in Organisations: How to
Recognise, Understand & Respond to It (1999).
Mabin found a survey that reveals the prerequisites
for a successful change – this includes everything from vision, mission,
culture, communication and leadership. The important argument is if those
prerequisites are not met the whole change will fail “due to what is often termed
resistance to change” (Mabin, 2001). She is one of authors who closely
attracted to Waddell’s journal which provides more than just a traditional
negative view on resistance. Mabin scrutinize that there were some substantial
researches conducted in the 1960s and 1970s which started to throw different
concepts of resistance and shows its advantages.
Resistance exists wherever change takes place.
While many argue that resistance should not exist in ideal world, they agree
that change itself should happen all the time. Teare found that the only way
both individual and organisation can survive is by constantly innovate and
change. He analyses different scenarios of changes and argued that the best
suited managers are those with entrepreneurial type – who would examine
problems as a whole, willing to take risks to challenge conventional practices
and “view change as an opportunity rather than a threat” (Teare, 2002). These
managers should have skills to convince people to spend time and resources new
and uncertain initiatives (Teare, 2002).
Driving
Change Smoothly
In order to bring change as a successful plan,
McGuire listed various components with some of them are both explicitly and
implicitly observe the possibility for resistances and how to manage them. As
many now agree, resistance is not something that must be destroyed – should be
driven to the appropriate direction instead. Careful plans must be undertaken
to manoeuvre the change so that all those who will be affected can be brought
to participate in the whole change process.
Pressure
to change As the first
thing that triggers the change, pressure may come from external or internal
organisation (McGuire, 2003). Government legislation, social apprehension and
the needs to adapt new technologies are those may externally enforce the change
whereas internal initiatives to pioneering a new system may be considered as
internal pressure. Both pressures would draw a certain level of urgency for
change determined organisation’s needs. While McGuire was looking at the
pressure of change from different sources, Teare was more concern in different
ways the changes process can be conducted (Teare, 2002). This includes
“organisational de-layering” (Teare, 2002), dedicated teams and expert-driven
change in Business Process Re-Engineering (Teare, 2002).
Vision Organisation should comprehend its final goal
and their key persons (i.e. in managerial level) should be able to not just
working toward the change process but they have to be able to see the vision
and institute the change plan to finally achieve this vision (McGuire, 2003).
Teare in his paper suggested organisation must focus on its desired outcomes
throughout the change process (Teare, 2002). Managers and each individual
employee are required to participate in change learning process. This can only
happen if they are motivated with recognition of their achievements (Teare,
2002).
Explore
capabilities McGuire noted
that before making any step, organisation should analyse its capabilities in
dealing with change. Organisation needs to know its existing capacities, the
abilities those may be required during the change process, any problem that may
arise during the process as well as depth planning in its strategies and
position its key persons to support the whole processes (McGuire, 2003).
Action
plan This will extract the
whole change’s consequences in its nitty-gritty analysis. Understanding in
level of acceptance of the change process would definitely help management to
analyse who is supporting and who is not (McGuire, 2003).
Fighting
and Instituting Resistances
For those who are living in a conservative
world, change is often believed as a dangerous threat. Of course change can be
a positive for some however since most of negative cases were widely exposed
more than the positive side, more people would normally be happy if changes do
not take place. Change can be interpreted as promotion and demotion – which
leaves many feel insecure with their future employment (McGuire, 2003). They
are worry about how they may have to do their work in different ways or their
current “salary will be subject to change” (McGuire, 2003). Admittedly, behind
all the change process there are organisations needs for make more profits in
any possible way which often leads to job-cutting and restructuring. In business
world everything is a competition. Everyone within organisation must compete
both internally and externally to keep their existing job or to get a better
one.
Waddell specifically analysed this resistance
issues and found that there are many idealist managers who believe that “change
process that occurs with only minimal resistance must have been a good change
that was managed well” (Waddell, 1998). She argued that this understanding is
an immature perspective which leaves resistance in the negative side of the change
process. She discovered that even in the early 1990s a number of management
experts were still correlate resistances with “counter-productive behaviours”
(Waddell, 1998). Waddell also found that resistance is far more complex
condition than just one thought. Several minor factors may lead to a
multifaceted reason why resistance exists (Waddell, 1998):
Rational
factor This happens when
some employees are having different understanding of the outcome of the change
with the management. Such condition may convey them to choose being opposition
to change.
Non-rational
factor This reaction comes
from insensible employees who simply being egoist without tyring to understand
the needs of organisation in general. In this category are those with “if it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it” feeling (McGuire, 2003).
Political
factor This reaction may
arise when some people are trying to politicise the change and the fact that
they may be happy if they win against their opponent in decision whether change
should take place or not.
Management
factor Of course there are
possibilities where management doesn’t provide adequate information which may
lead to resistances.
As most of authors agreed, the only way to
accommodate resistance is by giving information as much as possible to all the
parties those who may be involved in the process and wherever possible bring
them to participate as much as possible throughout the change (McGuire, 2003;
Waddell, 1998; Teare, 2002). Management may need to conduct information
sessions, counselling sessions or motivational workshops to inform their staff
not just about the change process, organisation’s new mission as its background
(McGuire, 2003). During these introductory sessions, management may gather
various information including possible resistants and where and how those
resistants may be raised. McGuire stated “if you are aware of who is resistant
to change and why, you are in strong position to overcome their resistance.”
These resistances are often appearing as result of lack of understanding on
change’s grounds. That is why, simply by discussing openly all the strategies
with staff and listening their curiosity or fears would normally untie the
complex problems (McGuire, 2003). Deutsch and his group emphasized “people must
be made to feel a part of the change”. This includes allowing them to suggest
where to begin, allowing them implementing it and deciding what would be the
next steps. This may too radical in over allocating power, however the point is
management needs to “communicate the change effectively”, giving them
sufficient time to understand the new change, giving them adequate knowledge to
handle the change and the most important point is not to try to view the whole
process as moving from negative to the positive, rather accept the change as a
continuing process from the past experiences (Deutsch, 2002). Waddell argued when
management’s understanding of resistance become clearer, they will find that
their employees are not resist the change itself, rather they resist
“uncertainties and potential outcomes that change can cause” (Waddell, 1998).
She added resistance itself is not the main problem; it is just a “symptom” of
the real problem that may come up during the change process. Therefore, resistance
is a good sign to bring management’s attention that change may not be
appropriate, not properly prepared or unwell planned.
Teare fundamentally underlined to stop looking
at resistance as fire which must be extinguished completely, rather management
needs to learn how to benefits from resistances to help them to successfully
bring the change process to gain the desired organisation’s outcomes (Teare,
2002).
Dym in his paper supported the idea that
management must be able to sit down together, speak to their employees and
respect any queries. He added that most of the people “react because they feel
powerless” (Dim, 2002). Only with this sense, management may interpret these
resistances as willingness to participate from those who felt left behind. By
empowering them, management will find themselves
working in a united work force supported by all their loyal employees.
Concluding
thoughts
It is interesting to see that despite the
number of people who thought that resistance was a terrible thing, some were
trying to come up with a drastic idea that it may be helpful, useful,
beneficial or even constructive in someway. After reading some of these
literatures, I realised that inside most of those resistances there are
meanings beyond that simple word. It is unfortunate, I have never sat in
management level at this stage and I am the one who always being resistant,
however if one day I have a chance to taste that fortune, I will certainly
remember that resistant can be a rewarding thing as well.
Personal
Reflexion
CHANGE. For me, this word is always controversial. Because
human is weaponed with free-will, they often put that at the front-end of
their lips. Pro and contra about change is just another piece of cake. While
some say nice, others find it horrible. Yet, the cake will have to be finished
in someway before got rotten. This is all determined by our position during
the change initiation. Those who are pioneering the change would obviously
blow their own mind to impose the change to everyone else while in the other
side stack of people hiding themselves inside cans and disturb the world with
the noises they make in their own cans. Everyone thinks that they have “words”
to be heard and not a single word to be listened. If everyone thinks the same
way what would this world be? What would any project be?
Changes have just got to be happened. Some are
more necessary than others and some require more commitment than others. Shall
there is not a single change happen in this world, we are still sitting somewhere in the jungle making fire with a piece of wood.
Even in ancient world, people were trying to make a better life. In modern
life, change means a whole lot more meanings. Admit it, no one, no organisation, no business would be able to survive without
change. Life is hard, competitions are unavoidable, and everyone is running to
achieve their goals. Those who make no change means make a big step back.
Wise resistances are necessary to keep the
change harmonised and accommodated for all individual needs. Dull, dumb,
stupid, irritating, idle, impediment opinions should be avoided to keep the
change being constructive towards business, organisation or even personal life.
Hang-on! Human is weaponed with free-will. Yes, But! Human is also equipped
with intelligence and unlimited power of brain (even the most powerful super
computer in this world is only equivalent with half capacity of a single
brain). This capability would definitely ensure every human has competency to
adapt during the change process. And with the same capability, the same brain
would be able to form an extra-ordinary motivation and action to make a better
life, organisation and business. Imagine if we join our brains with the same
motivation like that.
Shall I responsible with any change project, I
would asked those with the “future” to understand our current needs and those
with short vision to watch towards a better future. For me, I would wisely use
my free-will certainly as the very last weapon (and not the first) and
committed to support any constructive plans headed for a better plan in
business and future personally. In this case, a brain would normally work
better than a heart.
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