One of the greatest challenges for leaders is ensuring the cooperation of its employees to change. Many people in companies are averse to change, some regardless of how big or how little the change is. Because of this aversion, many companies spend huge investment of time and other resources implement change, often failing to achieve the goals associated with the change.
Today life is full of change, and it feels like it’s happening without us being able to control most of it, and that’s true. Weather conditions such as forest fires, tsunamis, hotter weather across the globe than we have ever experienced; pandemics, political and social unrest and more have caused change to happen we didn’t expect, plan for and often don’t know how to manage through. This doesn’t account for changes in companies such as people leaving, new team members or leaders coming on board, lay-offs, acquisitions and the many other changes that happen in companies all the time.
It’s no wonder people are change adverse, fearful and at times down right resistant.
To be able to help address this a leader needs to first understand why his people fear change. What are the factors that cause such a terrible blockage for people about change, and what can you do to help them move towards acceptance? The reasons are many but the top five reasons why employees fight change are described below:
They perceive a risk in their personal well being – change is perceived as a force that brings in additional responsibility, new modalities of work and in worst cases loss of job. The employee acutely fears that if the change is allowed in the company, they would be at risk and life as they know it will no longer be. Even changes that are not a choice the company makes, but a decision they make to situations around them such as social issues, weather, pandemics and such; cause people to sense their well being will be impacted. And of course they will believe the impact will be negative, not positive. Who wouldn’t be resistant?
There are no immediate role models when change comes in – one of the key problems with dealing with change in a company is that employees have not been through it before and/or have anyone to emulate. There is no one to put as a role model for how to deal with change. Who can they look to for advice and ideas on how to embrace and navigate through change? If there are no role models to emulate, and everyone is saying and doing the same things…resisting change, fearful and gossiping about it, of course each person will be watching them, and then these employees become the role model, with no positive role models to offset them.
Employee may feel incompetent to take up the new responsibilities – change means new way of doing things, new jobs, new skills. People fear that they may not live to the expectations of their superiors; they feel that they do not have the required competency to deliver their duties in the new style of working. At the same time, they are afraid to admit this to their supervisors/ managers/ bosses lest they would lose their jobs.
Employees feel overwhelmed – there is no time when change is introduced or about to the introduced that there is a huge amount of time to adjust. At times there is literally no times. Employees may be made aware of the change only a few hours before it occurs, or after it has already been decided and implemented. If people are aware of the change happening in the near future, the period before the change occurs bogs employees down mentally, waiting to see what will actually happen. They are likely tense about the overall picture. When the change occurs there is a period of everyone wandering around not quite sure what to do and what the expectations are. These factors alone cause stress and create overwhelm.
Employees fear there is a hidden agenda – unless you start with a well informed group about why and what type of change is planned, employees would fear there is a hidden agenda about the change. Nothing is more upsetting than employees feeling like they aren’t getting the ‘real story’. Huge amounts of time are spent talking to others about their concerns and attempting to uncover the real truth about the change. Uncertainty creates fear and fear creates distrust.
Change is difficult for most people. Everyone has a different tolerance level for how much, and what type of change they can easily manage through. Regardless too many changes at the same time are challenging, even for the best change agents.
As a leader if you stop to understand what is behind the resistance to change from your team, you will be able to help them move through it with less angst, and thus resistance. Whenever possible, before introducing change take the time to consider the factors that may make change more difficult than it needs to be. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies here.
Like all situations, the communications skills you use during times of change can and will impact how much time you spend managing people’s emotions, and fears. We can help.
Download our guide, 7 Communication Skills to Stop Stress in Its Tracks, and get the skills you need to communicate effectively during times of change.
