Dealing with Roadblocks
You're running late (as usual) to drive to your next appointment, and bam! In front of you is a huge, and entirely unexpected, roadblock. You swear there were no warning signs (well, maybe you were a bit distracted on a very important call). You see detour signs, but have no idea where they'll take you, or how long it will take. (Naturally, in your hurry to get out the door, you left your GPS at home.) At this rate, you'll already be late, so you can't afford a misstep.
What are your choices? You can try to drive around the roadblock, but have no idea what lies down that road (a police officer with a ticket in hand, or perhaps a crater that can swallow up your car?). You can follow the detour signs and hope they bring you down the most efficient route. Or you can tap into your internal compass (if indeed you have one) to work out your own route. Or you might stop someone to ask for directions, assuming you trust their sense of direction. And of course, you can always turn around and go home.
We all have different ways of dealing with roadblocks, based on our personalities, perceived sense of urgency, navigational abilities, experience dealing with similar roadblocks, and other factors. And so it is when we encounter resistance to organizational change, a very particular type of roadblock, that tends to stop even the most experienced leaders in their tracks.
Organizational Change: Anticipate and Address Resistance
Just as drivers must determine how best to handle different types of roadblocks that block their paths, so, too, must company leaders learn how to anticipate and address resistance to organizational change. In this article we offer tips for determining just how formidable that roadblock is, and deciding which interventions make the most sense to remove the roadblock, or at least to minimize the inconvenience.
- Is the roadblock a mirage? Are you starting to see roadblocks everywhere you turn just because you expect to? Perhaps you have heard second-hand anecdotes about a few negative responses and assume that these naysayers represent everyone. Or maybe some people are alarmed at one relatively small aspect of the upcoming change, but they're probably okay with the rest of it. Take the time to assess the true nature and extent of any potential resistance by polling a range of representative stakeholders. Make sure to use neutral language, open-ended questions, and a combination of methods, blending both written and verbal interviews to accommodate different languages, time zones and communication styles. Best to have someone who's perceived as objective and credible do the asking, with assurance of anonymous responses, if needed, to spur candid feedback.
- Can you plow through it? It's possible that a few well-timed, persuasively-worded messages can help you bulldoze your way through a roadblock, especially if it's not very high. For example, suppose your organization is rolling out a new way to get IT support, and the key objection seems to be the addition of an extra step before being able to access a live person. If you explain that this extra step can save the organization some serious money on support costs, or will actually expedite the time to resolve most IT issues, chances are most people will go along with that one extra step without a lot of fuss.
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