{"id":245734,"date":"2024-08-09T13:56:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T11:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pphr.dk\/?p=245734"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:42:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T13:42:04","slug":"resistance-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pphr.dk\/en\/insights\/resistance-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"How to handle resistance to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

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How to handle resistance to change <\/strong><\/h1>\n

The prospect of change can create nervousness and uncertainty among employees. That’s why resistance is usually a common accompaniment to corporate restructuring.<\/p>\n

However, resistance to change hides essential insights that you, as a leader, can use to mobilise your employees.<\/p>\n

When a company undergoes a significant restructuring, uncertainty among employees often leads to a reluctance to change.<\/p>\n

Suppose you, as a leader, understand how to use resistance constructively by understanding why it arises and how you can use it to understand the individual employee’s ability to change. In that case, you can make the change succeed.<\/p>\n

Read on to find out how to turn resistance around and empower your employees to take responsibility for making change happen.<\/p>\n

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Resistance is a natural reaction to change<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When a company faces a change process<\/a>, many leaders experience employee resistance.<\/p>\n

Many change approaches assume that resistance to change must be broken down or overcome to get people to change. But this is no longer possible.<\/p>\n

Instead, leaders should focus more on using resistance constructively to understand why it occurs and how it can engage employees in making the change successful.<\/p>\n

The change doesn’t necessarily have to result in something suitable for every employee, but it should make sense to everyone why the change is happening.<\/p>\n

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Understand what drives resistance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When top management shares their vision for restructuring in the company, the intention is usually that the vision itself will mobilise employees to drive the change.<\/p>\n

The problem with this is that the organisation’s employees are often driven by two specific factors: resistance to loss and uncertainty about their gain.<\/p>\n

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1) Reluctance to lose what I have<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In most change processes, there are four main phases that deal with planning and managing the change. Each phase presents different challenges and opportunities:<\/p>\n

People are willing to go much further to keep something they feel they have than to get something they may only be able to get.<\/p>\n

Threats to one’s livelihood, self-understanding, social connection and identity contain high resistance energy. That’s why anxiety is a natural companion in any change process.<\/a><\/p>\n

It must be clear to employees what they stand to lose by not being an active part of the process.<\/p>\n

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2) Doubt about meaning and relevance to me<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The amount of information available today is overwhelming, and it has become an art for both professional and academic employees to sort through it.<\/p>\n

This development has helped create a movement towards seeking out what is relevant to us. In most changes, there will be a big difference between what top management and frontline staff find relevant.<\/p>\n

If the employee is unsure of the relevance of the change, the worst-case scenario is that the employee disconnects from the change process altogether.<\/p>\n

Change communication<\/a> must, therefore, make it clear why the change is relevant to the company – and, if possible, to the individual employee.<\/p>\n

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Meet resistance head on<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While it’s tempting to initiate change by threatening that “if we don’t succeed with this change, we’ll have to close down, and everyone will be out of a job”, we certainly don’t recommend it. The fear of change should always be addressed constructively.<\/p>\n

Clarify the benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n

In your change management<\/a>, it should be made clear to the employees what opportunities they have to contribute to moving forward, in this way mobilising maximum change energy.<\/p>\n

If done correctly, you can also avoid change participants using their anxiety energy to share their concerns, resulting in decreased productivity, increased stress, and lost momentum.<\/p>\n

Clarify the “why”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition, as a leader, you also need to be able to answer questions like “Why and how does this relate to our purpose and everything else we’re doing?”.<\/p>\n

To create relevance for different leaders and employees, you need to be able to answer the question: “What good does the change do?”.<\/p>\n

You should also be able to answer why the change is necessary for the following:<\/p>\n