Resistance to Change

[00:00:18] Hello everyone, I am Andy coming to you from the United Kingdom again.

[00:00:25] Hello Andy, I'm Scott, another one of your hosts and I am overlooking the Chicago River at the

[00:00:30] moment. Andy did you know that they dye the river green on St Patrick's Day here?

[00:00:37] I did not know that. Do you do St, is that a thing where in the UK St Patrick's Day?

[00:00:42] St Patrick's Day is an Irish thing, so St Patrick being a patron saint of Ireland

[00:00:49] which is not something that we celebrate so much in the UK. You don't observe it at all?

[00:00:53] It's not a thing? Not really no. It's like a holiday. In the UK we've kind of been off and

[00:01:01] on at war with them for many years over the Northern Ireland location which is probably a

[00:01:07] topic we should avoid discussing. You got very nervous when I brought this up. Well anyway,

[00:01:12] listen St Patrick's Day is a big thing in North America especially in Chicago and the reason I

[00:01:19] just mentioned is because I was just looking out the window at the Chicago River and it is

[00:01:22] not St Patrick's Day and that river is green. Oh that is interesting. It's a couple of months

[00:01:29] too late but maybe it had some leftover dye or something. It is bright green on St Patrick's

[00:01:34] Day today. I think it's just regular green. Anyway, I digress. No that's fine and back to

[00:01:42] the organization here we are speaking to you from the TN Timbits podcast and this is a podcast

[00:01:49] about global perspectives on business development to help you prosper and today we're going to

[00:01:55] pick up on a topic that I introduced in the story last week which is going to be about the

[00:02:01] resistance to change. However, before we get into that, Scott do you have any stories other than

[00:02:08] green rivers from the Windy City? Quick anecdote which I think everybody can relate to

[00:02:15] but it happened to me recently and that's why I thought I'd share it is recognizing the fact

[00:02:22] that your competitors are also often your allies. So I'm at an event here and there are other

[00:02:31] agencies that do what we do in the digital space. This is an e-commerce conference

[00:02:37] and I've been getting to know some of the other agencies that are here and you know a

[00:02:44] lot of them will, the default posture is standoffish and oh well I can't talk to you,

[00:02:48] you're the enemy but then I've met a couple who are like oh you know what we should connect,

[00:02:54] let's grab coffee, let's talk about business, let's share stories about what's working,

[00:02:58] what's not working and let's see what we can learn from each other and I mean that's just

[00:03:03] I mean then right there like that's just you know when you find that person it makes it

[00:03:07] all the much more worthwhile. So have had a couple of very good conversations along those

[00:03:13] lines and it's a good reflection to just be open-minded about sort of what you can gain from

[00:03:18] everybody in the room. Yeah no that's right I don't think anyone should be afraid of

[00:03:24] competition. I think competition is a healthy thing because it means that your market is alive

[00:03:29] and you know there's opportunities there and collaboration and partnership whether

[00:03:36] a competitor or not I think is something very valuable that we should all embrace and

[00:03:41] encourage no matter how hard it is sometimes to do that.

[00:03:47] So there you go. But then we are okay thank you for the story very interesting and let's get

[00:03:53] into today's topic, it's about the resistance to change not the resistance to partnering

[00:03:58] with your competitors but that may be something very related but this came out of the back

[00:04:06] of the story I mentioned last week where I had experienced three different companies who had been

[00:04:13] implementing different change processes but that the organization were being resistant to it

[00:04:21] so the sales teams were sort of resisting the change process, the implementation of it,

[00:04:27] the actions that are required of them and so on. And so I thought this week we could

[00:04:33] talk about how to mitigate that if you have a change process in your organization

[00:04:40] and what you can do about it to make sure it's a success.

[00:04:44] So I don't want to jump straight to sort of solving this but I asked you a question which

[00:04:49] I'm going to restate here or re-ask because I think it can help us get into it which is

[00:04:55] when you encounter this resistance do you think it is because there is an inherent human

[00:05:01] aversion to change or do you think that it is just because the value, the benefit has not been

[00:05:10] clearly communicated? I guess the second question is a leading question

[00:05:19] because obviously that kind of gets at how to solve for the first inherent problem but I'm

[00:05:26] still curious what do you think is the primary driver there in your experience of

[00:05:30] that resistance? I don't care what the solution is or why we're doing this, why

[00:05:36] can't the way we've been doing it just keep happening versus building the case for support

[00:05:42] and getting people aligned with the direction we want to go.

[00:05:49] The answer to the question is that it is a multi-faceted challenge that

[00:05:57] the leaders face regardless of what the change process is or

[00:06:02] what industry they're in, what size of business, what size of team

[00:06:06] because as you alluded to there is a natural human resistance to change. It's a fear

[00:06:14] that the people have, people become comfortable and to uproot them, to make them feel

[00:06:20] uncomfortable is not a good thing. People will resist it if they feel that they have the

[00:06:24] power to resist and I think coming back to the other point as well about the communication,

[00:06:32] the communication is very important but even when the value of the change has been communicated,

[00:06:39] the importance of the change has been communicated and it's been done in the

[00:06:43] right way, it's been done consistently and it's been done in a clear and concise way,

[00:06:49] you will still have the resistance and it's how you manage that resistance

[00:06:56] and work through that when it's there is I think the key.

[00:07:04] So in some ways, there's elements of it that come back to the tough love episode

[00:07:11] that we did a few weeks ago because I think at some point as a leader if you're trying to

[00:07:17] implement a change, you have to say look this decision has been made, we are going to make

[00:07:24] this change, this is going to happen and I expect you to come along with me and I expect

[00:07:31] you to take the actions that we are going to discuss, I expect you to follow the process

[00:07:35] as it's been outlined and I expect you to adopt these in part of your day-to-day activities

[00:07:41] and that's a tough thing to do as a leader but I think it's still very important that you allow

[00:07:46] a platform for people to express their concerns, their fears, their anxieties,

[00:07:52] their resistance and that you then appoint people within the organisation, you focus on

[00:07:59] the ringleaders and you give them some sort of power and responsibility to help actually

[00:08:05] implement that change. There's many different ways of doing it but I think at some point

[00:08:10] you have to be a bit tough and you have to be a bit clear that this is going to happen,

[00:08:14] if you don't want to be along on the journey then maybe there's a journey for you somewhere else.

[00:08:20] I disagree. Oh good. Okay so let me qualify that, I think that sort of that top-down

[00:08:31] heavy-handed approach is absolutely about the worst way to manage change and that is your last

[00:08:38] resort, that is what you do when you've tried everything else and you have to take a few

[00:08:44] outlying people and say listen if you can't get on board with this then we're going to have to

[00:08:51] find another seat for you to sit in. I believe that is what the episode is about though.

[00:08:56] About what do you mean? About the resistance to change and managing the resistance to change

[00:09:01] so that is a bit, so I think we actually do agree. I think we do agree because that is not the

[00:09:08] first way of doing it going out to the organization. We are making this change,

[00:09:12] this is the way it's going to be, you must all do it or you're out. That is a very bad

[00:09:16] approach, I agree completely. This is the point where you're addressing that resistance

[00:09:22] to change, where you get to that point where you're going okay so you've already gotten through

[00:09:26] all that and now you've still got resistance. Okay so resistance to change tends to come up

[00:09:35] in my experience right from the get-go, right? So I think that you need to make sure that

[00:09:42] you're clear about why you're changing, what the change means but it's still for, listen,

[00:09:51] most of the time it gets done in exactly that way. You communicate clearly this is why

[00:09:56] we're doing it, this is where we're going, this is what we believe and we really need everybody to

[00:10:00] pause, reflect and sort of bring themselves into alignment with this and we'll have some

[00:10:05] discussions and make sure that your concerns and questions are addressed and so that we

[00:10:10] get your feedback and so that this can be as smooth a process as possible. However, I think

[00:10:16] one critical misstep that happens before you even implement the change is

[00:10:22] integrating as many people that are involved in that change in the planning for the change.

[00:10:31] So getting them to contribute to what they think the change should be, explaining to them before

[00:10:37] you re-engineer anything this is the problem that we're having. We want everybody's input

[00:10:44] and listen it does not mean that you need to accommodate everybody's input but you

[00:10:49] absolutely get benefit by saying listen let's review where we're at, let's discuss the path,

[00:10:56] is the problem even something that everybody recognizes to be true or does somebody have a

[00:11:01] different perspective on whether or not this is a problem, why it's a problem, how we got into

[00:11:05] this place. So I think if you skip that step then you much sooner in the change

[00:11:14] implementation get to that point where you kind of have to take a more heavy-handed

[00:11:19] approach. I think you're completely right and that managing the change upfront and preparing

[00:11:24] for change is definitely beneficial to make a collaborative process. As we talk now I think

[00:11:35] there's definitely going to be an opportunity for us to maybe do a little bit of a series on this

[00:11:40] because there's many aspects that we want to talk about about this that we're trying to squeeze

[00:11:44] into one episode. So it led from a story into an episode and I think the episode is going

[00:11:48] to lead into a little bit of a mini series. I mean it is such a classic business challenge

[00:11:54] regardless of where you sit in the organization and many many a book and opinion have been

[00:12:00] levied against it. So I think there's one thing that you touched on there as well

[00:12:09] and that is that very often in an organization your change that you're trying

[00:12:15] to implement or you're trying to introduce may be related to something that you've already

[00:12:20] been sort of saying I think it's a good idea if we do this or maybe you should go and do some

[00:12:24] more prospecting. Maybe you should have some more time on the telephone and not just send

[00:12:28] emails and linkedin messages to people who should actually pick up the telephone but it's

[00:12:33] never been a behavior that's been I suppose punished for not doing or it's been you know

[00:12:40] held accountable for how much people have done it and so of course when you start to introduce

[00:12:45] a change process and you say and now we're going to only do telephone prospecting

[00:12:50] people go yeah but you said that you know for the last three years as well and we didn't make

[00:12:54] any difference that we didn't do it so why should I bother now and I think so there needs

[00:12:58] to be a bit of hands-up ownership from that leader as well and say look the past three years

[00:13:06] I've been allowing you to do your email messaging and your linkedin messaging as your primary

[00:13:11] lead generation and it's just not working. I've encouraged you to use the telephone

[00:13:17] you haven't been doing it and I think that's the thing that's missing so I really think that

[00:13:21] we need to be focusing on this now. My fault for not encouraging it not pushing it further

[00:13:26] and not being more encouraging and supportive of you in doing that. I think a leader you know

[00:13:34] however they communicate it but they need to they need to put their hands up and say

[00:13:38] sorry I was wrong but this is what we're doing now and this is why we're doing it.

[00:13:43] I've encountered situations where and I think even we had a little bit of a moment about

[00:13:49] this just a moment ago which was there's actually a shared vision about where the change

[00:13:56] is needed and what the right change should be but the way that it gets articulated between

[00:14:02] different people leads to confusion and uncertainty and friction and I think you need to

[00:14:14] sort of set the frustration aside and you kind of need to agonize over that for as long as

[00:14:22] you possibly can to get everybody really singing from the same song sheet. Listen we're

[00:14:29] saying the same thing but I think you mean and I think this and like I've had this so many times

[00:14:35] where you finally get to the end of that 90 minute session that was only booked for an hour

[00:14:42] to realize right okay like I get what you're saying now I get what you're saying now

[00:14:48] yeah yeah yeah this is all crystallizing for me. A lot of people just need the time

[00:14:53] to feel like the vision that they have in their mind is actually reflected in

[00:14:58] the change that's coming because they might not recognize it the way if they imagine it and once

[00:15:04] you give everybody time to sort of immerse themselves in it that picture becomes clearer

[00:15:09] in everybody's mind. Yeah no I think you're right and I think this is the best thing about

[00:15:15] this discussion that we're having now we're staying very high level but we're talking

[00:15:18] about the the resistance the the combating the resistance to change isn't just focused

[00:15:23] on that bit when you've got that resistance to change it's about mitigating that upfront

[00:15:28] it's about putting all of the steps in place at the as early as possible in order to address and

[00:15:35] take out a lot of these potential resistance as you get towards the end so that when you

[00:15:40] finally implement it it's much much easier to have a more professional relaxed and calm

[00:15:47] conversation with people to get them back on board and you minimize that element of risk

[00:15:52] if you do the proper work and preparation up front. There you go. Super well thanks very much

[00:16:00] Scott I really appreciate the discussion I think we should definitely have a think about maybe

[00:16:04] doing a series on this but let's see what the listeners give us as feedback maybe they

[00:16:08] don't want us to talk about this at all anyway it's been a nice conversation thank you very

[00:16:13] much if anyone wants to get in touch with us and tell us whether you want us to do a

[00:16:18] series on change then please do get in touch go to tntmbits.com and you will find many ways

[00:16:24] to get in touch and many ways to listen to this episode again on different platforms should you

[00:16:28] so desire. See you again soon Scott. Thanks Andy thanks everybody.