Implement Change Without Staff Revolts

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Contemporary management faces change on a seemingly daily basis. Technology and business conditions appear to morph and modify faster than the stock market rises and falls. Always important, change implementation strategies have become critical components to C-level executive decision menus.

Employees, however, continue to resist change, as they have always done. Those executives that accept this consistent reality understand that these are natural feelings. Commit to turning around a first-glance negative into a positive that can improve workplace conditions and staff performance.


Treat Natural Resistance as a Form of Valuable Feedback

While staff resistance to planned, thoughtful and necessary change can be annoying to management, executives must remember that these cranky employees also possess valuable knowledge of your company’s operations and corporate culture.

Sure, you will receive displeasure from those employees who typically complain or whine about everything from compensation, benefits and the break room or the coffee quality. However, you also may hear dissatisfaction from those who normally keep their focus and support management. You may even “feel” the silent displeasure from less vocal staff members.

Try changing your thinking to improve the situation. Instead of spending money and time with rigorous training on new policies, procedures and operating methods, along with staff relations “selling” activities, consider employee resistance as valuable feedback.

Using this philosophy, you can tailor your delivery to your audience. Respecting this employee knowledge, you can evaluate their resistance and its causes more objectively. You may identify some valuable concerns that might even modify or improve some features of the coming changes.

You might also find valuable nuggets of ideas in some of the resistive comments staff members make. Good ideas and suggestions are not the exclusive purview of senior management, since, in all but the smallest of companies, executives spend little meaningful time “in the trenches.”

You might ask, “How can I use this resistance or displeasure to help our management change process?” Consider these suggestions that have proven to achieve change success.


How to Use Staff Resistance to Improve Change Implementation Strategies

Harness employee change resistance to improve operations and increase production. Walk a mile in the “moccasins” of your staff for a moment. Authors Jeffrey D. and Laurie W. Ford did this in their article, “Decoding Resistance to Change,” for the Harvard Business Review. Here are a few valuable—and proven—suggestions.

  • Explain the changes. Understand that staff often sees their job duties changing or, even, becoming unnecessary. Encourage employees to talk about the coming management change process. Keep the dialogue alive and active. Explaining the changes in language meaningful to staff minimizes longer term discontent.

  • Discuss the “why.” While you and other senior management have probably spent hours discussing, brain storming and evaluating change options, understand that most employees were never consulted nor had the opportunity to participate. Effectively explaining the “why” of these changes can deliver wonderful positive results to help your change management strategies succeed.

  • Admit the risks. Look at the face in the mirror and admit the perceived risks associated with the upcoming changes. Staff feedback may identify some pitfalls that your fellow executives may have overlooked. Use your knowledge that there are seldom rewards without risk to admit management change process potential pitfalls.

  • Solicit ideas and suggestions. Requesting ideas from your employees achieves two important objectives. You will build stronger participation and also stimulate employee engagement. Both of these results are important components of implementing successful change.

  • Admit prior change problems. Often, staff resistance is based on prior changes that simply didn’t work. While a positive “spin” on these failures may appear to be a great idea, your staff may not so easily forget earlier problems. You are better served by admitting prior problems and assuring your employees that you are committed to avoid similar issues in the future.

Executives and senior management must implement change to succeed in contemporary business. Instead of taking an adversarial position, senior executives can turn staff discontent into valuable feedback. Respecting that feedback, from knowledgeable, experienced employees, might help secure direct implementation strategies to success.

All executives understand the value of honest feedback. Whether internal or external, feedback regarding operations, branding and company policies is important to the decision-making and strategic planning process. Even staff discontent with change, natural and expected, can serve as influential feedback to help senior management create effective strategies and make better decisions.

Source:
http://www.exed.hbs.edu/assets/Documents/hbr-change-resistance.pdf