Overcoming Your Own Resistance To Change
Resistance to change in the workplace has two dimensions: those who resist and those who must deal with resistance from others. As a senior leader for many years, I have had first-hand experience of both sides. I understand the challenges leaders face in advocating successful change initiatives, even small ones. Yet I also remember times when I have not been as accepting or flexible as I could have in the face of new ideas. This article is about how your own resistance can negatively affect your career and what you can do about it.
The Center for Creative Leadership has identified difficulty in changing or adapting as one of the top reasons, if not the top reason, why executives (and others) derail. Specific difficulties include, for example, not adapting to the culture of an organization, resisting learning from mistakes, not resolving conflicts with the boss, or not being able to make the mental transition from technical manager to general manager.
What is resistance and where does it come from?
Bill Harris, in his book Thresholds of the Mind, defines resistance as: “Not letting whatever ‘is’ be okay... [and forming an] attachment to things being something other than what they are”. In The Fifth Discipline (p.163), Peter Senge describes mental models as “deeply held internal images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting”. If these mental models are not surfaced and examined, they can impede learning and make us resistant to ideas that do not fit into our comfortable view of the world.
Changing how we think is one of life’s tougher challenges. In Quiet Leadership (p.17), David Rock reminds us that “when external realities change, people’s internal realities don’t change as quickly”. When experiencing a big change, people need to rewire their brains to enable them to see and understand things differently.
‘Good’ resistance and ‘bad’ resistance.
Good resistance is overt and conscious. You have genuine concerns about the way things are going. Your objective is the good of the organization. You want to make sure all the key information is on the table before a decision is made. You know who the key decision makers are. You try to see the bigger picture and understand other points of view. You find appropriate ways to communicate your views and you back them up with facts and analysis. Once the decision is made, you either support it wholeheartedly or vote with your feet.
Bad resistance is covert and can be either conscious or unconscious. When conscious, you deliberately choose not to cooperate. You ‘check out’, stop caring, become arrogant, overly critical and combative, complain, place blame, gossip, dismiss others as idiots, and quietly protect the status quo while lying low waiting for the change leaders to move on, ‘the way they always do’. Unconscious resistance is more difficult to pinpoint. You may be unaware of how often you discount a suggestion, attribute bad motives to someone without checking your assumptions, use past experience to explain why something won’t work. You play the “yes but” game. You feel victimized by people and events. You know you are right and ‘they’ just don’t understand. The problem is, although you may not be fully aware of what you are doing and why, other people can see it clearly. It can have serious consequences for your present job and your future career.
10 tips to stop resistance from derailing your career.
1. Start by observing yourself when you don’t like something that is happening in the workplace.
Do you complain a lot about things and people? Try to understand what is really bothering you. Are there more positive ways to see the situation?
2. Be aware of your circle.
Who are you attracting? Are you mostly engaged with people wanting to get things done or those wanting to complain about how bad things are?
3. Examine your attitude to your boss and the senior management team.
Do you see yourself as part of the organization’s team? Or do you see your boss as an idiot and think that ‘they’ do not understand ‘us’?
4. Turn off your rejector/evaluator program.
Rather than using your experience to find flaws, use it to ask open-ended, constructive questions to improve your own and others’ understanding and to explore new possibilities.
5. Shake yourself up a bit. Take on something new.
It is easy to get stale inside your comfort zone. Volunteer for a task or some training that will teach you something you don’t know.
6. Have a hard look at your belief system.
Sometimes we hold on to our beliefs and assumptions for too long. What may have been helpful in the past may be holding you back today. A trained executive coach can support you in gaining new insights.
7. Evaluate ideas, not people.
Sometimes we resist certain ideas because of our feelings about individual people. You need to examine ideas on their merits and not let your judgement be clouded by personal issues.
8. Expand your perspective.
Many organizations function in silos, i.e. parts of the organization may work independently from each other and may not always communicate well. Look beyond your own area of responsibility to understand more of what may be going on. Be open to ideas of newcomers even though you are the expert. There is always more to learn which, in the long run, will only benefit you.
9. Avoid ‘disaster thinking’ and the ‘circle of doom’.
In the midst of change, it can be tempting to imagine the worst and see only the negative. Instead, look for opportunities and benefits. As is often said, in crisis there is opportunity.
10. Invite feedback and listen to it well.
This can help you to uncover your own blind spots and explore more productive ways of dealing with the situation.
Resistance to change is a natural, human process. Overcoming resistance in yourself and supporting others as they move through change takes time and effort. Paying attention to your own resistance and actively examining its underlying causes can help you make better choices about the best course of action for you and for your organization.
The Center for Creative Leadership has identified difficulty in changing or adapting as one of the top reasons, if not the top reason, why executives (and others) derail. Specific difficulties include, for example, not adapting to the culture of an organization, resisting learning from mistakes, not resolving conflicts with the boss, or not being able to make the mental transition from technical manager to general manager.
What is resistance and where does it come from?
Bill Harris, in his book Thresholds of the Mind, defines resistance as: “Not letting whatever ‘is’ be okay... [and forming an] attachment to things being something other than what they are”. In The Fifth Discipline (p.163), Peter Senge describes mental models as “deeply held internal images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting”. If these mental models are not surfaced and examined, they can impede learning and make us resistant to ideas that do not fit into our comfortable view of the world.
Changing how we think is one of life’s tougher challenges. In Quiet Leadership (p.17), David Rock reminds us that “when external realities change, people’s internal realities don’t change as quickly”. When experiencing a big change, people need to rewire their brains to enable them to see and understand things differently.
‘Good’ resistance and ‘bad’ resistance.
Good resistance is overt and conscious. You have genuine concerns about the way things are going. Your objective is the good of the organization. You want to make sure all the key information is on the table before a decision is made. You know who the key decision makers are. You try to see the bigger picture and understand other points of view. You find appropriate ways to communicate your views and you back them up with facts and analysis. Once the decision is made, you either support it wholeheartedly or vote with your feet.
Bad resistance is covert and can be either conscious or unconscious. When conscious, you deliberately choose not to cooperate. You ‘check out’, stop caring, become arrogant, overly critical and combative, complain, place blame, gossip, dismiss others as idiots, and quietly protect the status quo while lying low waiting for the change leaders to move on, ‘the way they always do’. Unconscious resistance is more difficult to pinpoint. You may be unaware of how often you discount a suggestion, attribute bad motives to someone without checking your assumptions, use past experience to explain why something won’t work. You play the “yes but” game. You feel victimized by people and events. You know you are right and ‘they’ just don’t understand. The problem is, although you may not be fully aware of what you are doing and why, other people can see it clearly. It can have serious consequences for your present job and your future career.
10 tips to stop resistance from derailing your career.
1. Start by observing yourself when you don’t like something that is happening in the workplace.
Do you complain a lot about things and people? Try to understand what is really bothering you. Are there more positive ways to see the situation?
2. Be aware of your circle.
Who are you attracting? Are you mostly engaged with people wanting to get things done or those wanting to complain about how bad things are?
3. Examine your attitude to your boss and the senior management team.
Do you see yourself as part of the organization’s team? Or do you see your boss as an idiot and think that ‘they’ do not understand ‘us’?
4. Turn off your rejector/evaluator program.
Rather than using your experience to find flaws, use it to ask open-ended, constructive questions to improve your own and others’ understanding and to explore new possibilities.
5. Shake yourself up a bit. Take on something new.
It is easy to get stale inside your comfort zone. Volunteer for a task or some training that will teach you something you don’t know.
6. Have a hard look at your belief system.
Sometimes we hold on to our beliefs and assumptions for too long. What may have been helpful in the past may be holding you back today. A trained executive coach can support you in gaining new insights.
7. Evaluate ideas, not people.
Sometimes we resist certain ideas because of our feelings about individual people. You need to examine ideas on their merits and not let your judgement be clouded by personal issues.
8. Expand your perspective.
Many organizations function in silos, i.e. parts of the organization may work independently from each other and may not always communicate well. Look beyond your own area of responsibility to understand more of what may be going on. Be open to ideas of newcomers even though you are the expert. There is always more to learn which, in the long run, will only benefit you.
9. Avoid ‘disaster thinking’ and the ‘circle of doom’.
In the midst of change, it can be tempting to imagine the worst and see only the negative. Instead, look for opportunities and benefits. As is often said, in crisis there is opportunity.
10. Invite feedback and listen to it well.
This can help you to uncover your own blind spots and explore more productive ways of dealing with the situation.
Resistance to change is a natural, human process. Overcoming resistance in yourself and supporting others as they move through change takes time and effort. Paying attention to your own resistance and actively examining its underlying causes can help you make better choices about the best course of action for you and for your organization.