Transcript for:
Effective Management of Change Resistance

I have a tip for you and then I'll back up and explain why it's important in a change process you will always find around you some people who basically always say no no and they really strongly mean that these are the guys that resist to the death we have a tendency to try to pull them in to Coop them into the process to work away and change their minds and my tip is forget it get them out of the way no matter who they are in terms of power or relationships to you because if you let them inside the tent they will do so much damage that the change will be undermined now let me back up I have yet to see a major change go on in a company or a government organization where you don't find at all levels some people whose reaction to any new strategy or idea is no no now some of these people if they're in powerful positions will be very upfront about you some won't they'll be very quiet but that's what they're thinking and that's what they're feeling and the tendency that I see all too often and that I think I would have done myself 10 years ago before I saw through studies the problems with this is to say well if only we can spend a little bit more time with George here we'll win him over or you know he's he's important enough that we've got to kind of co-opt him we'll make him a part of the the key team and if we pull him in eventually we'll work him down he'll feel some ownership with this program and that'll take care of that my observation has been if they're strong enough No No's it's hopeless it's absolutely hopeless and the only alternative you have is to get him out of the way distract them keep them out of the way because the Mischief they can do is almost endless the Mischief for example in just smiling at you and say yes yes but then going behind because you don't pay attention to them anymore and doing things that undo changes you've made talking to groups over here saying you know this is a little nuts and beginning to win them over of uh promising to do something and then oh gosh you know I forgot or I had this other priority and it slows you down the Mischief they can create is just about infinite I think most of us do not like the idea of saying he's hopeless we got to get him out of this and keep him out of this somehow I think most of us don't like that but I think in cases of significant change when you've got the no-nos around that's the only solution really the only solution