The Futility of Resistance (to Change)

Computerworld - One of the nastiest, most debilitating workplace cancers is resistance to change. For those of us who make a living observing and analyzing the inner workings of hundreds of companies, there isn't a more potent, paradoxical or equal-opportunity killer of progress and good intentions. How else to understand why companies - even successful ones - fail to act on well-conceived, workable solutions; actively discourage innovative, creative ideas; lose their best employees for stupid reasons; and often helplessly watch their triumphs slowly disintegrate?
Resistance to change is an important part of human beings' innate instinct to survive - yet, taken to extremes, it will result in their destruction. Maintaining the right balance is key to any organization's ongoing health and prosperity. Those who do it well use the following success factors:
• Manage transition, not change. Resistance to change is more deeply rooted in transition - which is psychological in nature, more internally felt and focused on endings - than in change itself, which is mostly situational, outwardly projected and focused on outcomes. Consequently, nothing undermines change like the failure to think through who will have to let go of what.
Fear is palpable in companies pursuing change initiatives. In breaking through fear-fueled resistance, it's critical to identify who's losing what, anticipate overreaction, acknowledge the losses and give something back. Look for signs of grieving and allow workers to openly vent their anger and frustration. Provide information until it slowly sinks in. Explicitly define what's over and what's not, mark endings and treat the past with respect, symbolically and even literally, by letting people take a piece of the old ways with them.
• Keep change teams small. Research indicates that small, empowered teams of six to eight have the greatest impact on change efforts. They're better at following rules but also at improvising solutions when facing barriers. And small teams make experimenting with essential performance-oriented reward and incentive programs easier.
• Anticipate and embrace failure. Recognize that progress is what counts, that learning the new is difficult and that relapses are normal.
• Use metrics. Appropriate metrics must be developed to more easily measure and reward performance toward achieving change objectives.
• Be in agreement. For enterprisewide change initiatives, make sure there's clear agreement among influential managers and workers on a compelling need for change, plus consensus on the business vision and understandable first steps toward change. Dissension fuels resistance.
• Invite broad participation. At least 15% of the workforce must be actively engaged and committed for enterprisewide change initia