Home About IUP Magazines Journals Books Amicus Archives
     
A Guided Tour | Recommend | Links | Subscriber Services | Feedback | Subscribe Online
 
Global CEO Magazine:
Managing resistance to change : Overcoming resistance at the cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This article offers three frameworks to understand employee resistance to change. The first frame relates the nature of change in strategy to the nature of change within the organization and explains which kinds of changes will meet high or low resistance. The second frame categorizes employees based on the change and offers suggestions to tackle them on this basis. The third frame makes an attempt to understand resistance at cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels, suggesting ways to overcome the resistance.

 
 
 

However, well-planned and logically sounds your change program, there will be some amount of resistance from the employees. The degree of resistance will depend on the scale and scope of the change program and employees' perceived threats and opportunities from the change. For some employees, the personal stakes may be very high, such as loss of authority, new responsibilities, and loss of personal time. For others, the change may bring about a number of personal benefits. Some employees may resist the change for a number of reasons, making it difficult to uncover the real reason for resistance. In addition, employees differ in the way they express their views about the change. Some are expressive whereas others are not, adding to the difficulty of managing resistance.

This article is divided into three sections: The first section presents an integrated strategic change model to depict the interrelationship between the nature of change in strategy and the corresponding change in the organization. This section also includes an explanation of the degree of employee resistance, which ensues based on the nature of change as explained by the model. The second section categorizes employees based on the way they support or resist change and offers proposals to tackle them. The last section provides suggestions to address resistance at three levels: Cognitive, emotional and behavioral. These three different frames provide a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of resistance to change. By adopting a holistic approach to understanding and responding to resistance, managers can ensure that they have not focused on just one view at the expense of another.

 

 
 
 

Global CEO Magazine, Managing Resistance to Change, Operational Change, Organization's Strategy, Siemens Nixdorf International, SNI, Corporate Restructuring, Organisational Behavior, Business Environment, Marketing Strategy, Organisational Goals.