Recognizing Obstacles to Change

To bring about change, employees have to commit to it. To commit to it, they have to accept it. Part of your role as a leader is breaking down resistance to change, and showing employees that committing to change will be worth their while.

You can start by understanding that employees often view change differently than executives

• At the executive level, change can sometimes equate to opportunity, and even personal gain. Management gets fired up about improving processes and increasing customer service, and then expects employees to mirror their enthusiasm.
• For an employee, change can be a scary concept, met with immediate feelings of disruption. And often, change fails because employees’ knee-jerk reaction is to resist change at all costs.

So to counteract failure in times of change, you must put yourself in your employees’ shoes – they’re the key to carrying out your change initiatives. By considering how employees define their roles and responsibilities, you can often find a way to propose change that’s as attractive for them as it is for you. Start out on the right foot by being honest with your employees. And make sure you’re empathetic. Once you grasp what people are going through, make every effort to minimize disruption and offer support. It’ll go a long way in making change happen successfully.

People resist change for a number of reasons

• Employees often think change will affect the mutual agreement they have with their employer or organization – Employees work based on a mutual agreement with their employer – a definition of their roles and responsibilities – obligations and loyalties that can either be implied or explicit. Change involves revising an employee’s mutual agreement to reflect new goals or additional tasks, which can cause resistance if the employee doesn’t fully understand the change implications, or feels the change will affect them adversely. When change is introduced, it can shake the foundation of employees’ work life, and the immediate reaction can be a barrier to change.
• They make hasty assumptions about what the change might entail – When they get their information about change through the grapevine, employees often make hasty, unfounded assumptions about how it will affect them. Any inkling of resistance to change tends to grow rapidly under these circumstances. If information isn’t readily available, or only partial information is leaked, employees may make the mistake of misjudging the implications of change. These assumptions then spread like wildfire among employees and multiply into new assumptions and new apprehensions.
• Many employees are pessimistic about change and the possible results – Employees may feel pessimism about change if they don’t know the benefits that could come from implementing the change successfully. If employees can’t visualize the real benefits of the changes, it can lead to pessimism, which leads to uncertainty and a lack of action – a sure-fire way to destroy any change initiative.
• Some employees feel they lack the knowledge, familiarity, or skills necessary to effect the changes that are requested – Employees may feel they just don’t have the skills or training necessary to make the leap to the new goals or expectations that come with a change initiative. Leaders have a responsibility to find a way to remove any psychological blocks and combat resistance that comes from a lack of knowledge or skills.

Other obstacles to change

Employee resistance is a common reaction and obstacle to any change initiative, but it’s not the only challenge you’ll face as a leader of change. You might face other obstacles

• lack of co-location among team members – A lack of co-location is challenging for managers, as it’s hard to maintain cohesion on a team that’s spread around the globe. You may find resistance because employees don’t feel they have adequate information or skills, they don’t feel tied to one another, they’re wary of change, or they don’t understand how they’ll be affected. In times of change, you’ll have to protect yourself against the obstacle of a lack of co-location, possibly coupled with employee resistance.
• a lack of leadership support for the change – If senior leaders or managers are blocking change, you may find this will shut down any bottom-up support for a change initiative. This barrier can become exhausting for staff members as they spend their time trying to get through this wall, only to succumb to the negativity and give up. As a leader of change, you can overcome this difficult situation by helping managers see the big picture and embrace it.
• organizational policies that limit change – Limitations of organizational policies can get in the way of change – especially if the change creates more red tape for employees or results in a lack of agility in decision making. Performance evaluation policies not aligned with organizational goals are a type of organizational policy that can sabotage a change initiative. You can’t facilitate change if your performance evaluation programs don’t reward the behaviors necessary for transformation. Organizational policies that direct information through certain channels can also either be a bonus or detriment to change. If it’s an organizational policy to keep key information in the upper echelons, without sharing it with employees, this will be an obstacle to change.

When preparing for change, it’s important that your goals are clear and your team is strong and united. It’s equally important that your team has the necessary knowledge to achieve adequate credibility and authority among staff members. Finally, the team you assemble to lead the change effort must be capable of motivating the change to the end. But even if you have a strong team, change doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to consider the time it’ll take for employees to get used to a new corporate culture and how changes will affect their daily routine. Customers also need time to adjust to how products or services have changed. And the public too must get used to the changes in your corporate image. It’s not uncommon for a full corporate cultural change to take five or more years.

As a leader, you’re responsible for breaking down barriers that may prevent change in your organization. Employees often put up resistance because they believe change will affect their mutual agreement, or they make hasty assumptions about the change initiative’s outcomes. They may also be pessimistic about change, or feel they don’t have the knowledge, familiarity, or skills needed to implement it. You may also encounter other obstacles to change, like the challenges of remote teamwork, company leaders who actively block change or organizational policies that impair change. Recognizing these types of resistance will allow you to counteract them while supporting your staff members and executing change.