Resistance to change LO552 (Was: Reinforcing...)

Roland Foerster (foerster@dial.eunet.ch)
Mon, 27 Mar 95 14:40:01 +0200

Replying to Reinforcing/Balancing in Humans LO543

Gray

I think you've pointed out one of the weeknesses of our concept of
organizational change when writing:

> I have always been concerned about the rhetoric of organisational
> change - it has concentrated on overcoming resistance to change, and
> gives very little attention to understanding whether any of the
> resistance is valid. Perhaps the people resisting change have a
> contribution to make to improve the change strategy. Perhaps they
> should be listened to rather than overcome.

I'm more and more convinced that resistance to change is not only
something we have to overcome. There's a huge potential of
information behind resistance. Everybody resisting to change has
good reasons to do so. Maybe these reasons are not concious (this
might be quite often the case), maybe these reasons are somewhat
"selfish". But in any case I think we souldn't just try to overcome,
but to understand those reasons and try to learn from them.

These reasons for resistance might tell us something about the
mental models of an organization, and if we can get to know them ...
well our position to change this organzation has dramatically
improved.
They sure tell us something about individual fears facing change,
and again if we get to know these fears we're in a much beter
position.

Does anyone have exercises which could be used to unhide these
reasons behind "resistance to change"? How could we unlock the
potential by not trying to overcome this resistnace, but to
effectively deal with it in a productive manner?

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From: Roland Foerster <foerster@dial.eunet.ch>