Luke has consulted for organisations in all parts of Ireland and on four continents. He has specialisations in change management, leadership excellence, strategy development, resilience, conflict and facilitation, also in mentoring and coaching leaders, boards and senior management teams.
He has carried out extensive research into the culture of organisations and how to effect positive change throughout an organisation. He has a long track record in professional development and training as well as a frequent speaker at conferences nationally and internationally.
We’ve all complained about those who resist change – ‘… If only they would move on or move out!’… well let’s turn that around and embrace the resistance at least for a while…in that resistance I have often found truths, insights, critiques and data that were essential to engage with, that made a major difference to the thrust of the change and also the process of that change.
Have a think about the following five tips for working with resistance – they have transformed many a change process from a probable failure to a good chance of sustained success…
Don’t demonise them – embrace the resistant colleague
It is just lazy to discount with a heavy ladle of – ‘…you know who will be against this – they always are...’ or some version of same. To sustain change is to play the long game of not just bringing people along with us but have them co-create the change with us. In the resistance may be the insights we need to give our change process a fighting chance – remember what change guru John Kotter tells us that only around 30% of change processes work. Give yourself, your team and your organisation a better change – embrace the resistance.
Listen and learn
Listening to resistance in a real way can be transformative on both sides of the conversation. Those who resist can often expect to be ignored, side-lined or bypassed – what a difference when their view is in fact respected not in a token way but in a manner that questions, adds and shapes a proposed change process.
It’s the relationship stupid!
So many change experts tell us that it is in connecting to the emotional layer professionally that we open up the willingness to move in new directions. I will trust this person, I will follow this leader that I know respects me – not so much this fancy
document with neat graphs!
Culture bites
All the best-laid plans will be as nothing without the culture bit being addressed. Drucker tells us that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ – well it dines out on badly calibrated change processes! A change process that does not engage in all aspects of organisational culture will just not work…I mean all aspects, not just how we value this, that and the other good thing, but our operational reality, the way we really do things around here…
Now get on with it
Loving the resistance does not mean giving in to it - rather respecting it, learning from it, co-creating with it. The task is still about moving forward, so don’t stay in the embrace just be better as a result of it…
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