Re: Resistance to Change LO790

Mike Gurstein (mikeg@nywork2.undp.org)
Sat, 15 Apr 1995 07:44:23 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO770 --

What seems to be lacking in the discussion about "resistance to change"
and the related discussion on "manipulation" is the recognition that the
"subjective" or individual response to change is only half of the
equation.

Many, dare I say it--most--organizations, when they are initiating
significant change go at it initially from the structural or the
process/procedural direction first and only as an afterthought do they get
concerned with the human/user response to the change which has been
initiated. The results of course, are frequently disastrous and then in
the more intelligent organizations along comes a concern with dealing with
"resistance to change" and so on.

The resistance to change may be a very reasonable response to changing
organizational circumstance--threat of job loss/power loss and so on.
"Manipulation" is one of the less scrupulous responses by management to
these conditions--some will argue (certain unions for example) that all of
the programs meant to facilitate management initiated changes are at their
base "manipulative".

I think the argument that a "learning organization" as with all healthy
entities must be one where benefits accrue to all participants, where all
participants have a meaningful say in the disposition of their working
lives, where authority accrues to performance and not just to position is
the most useful one. But such an argument cannot be carried forward
without some useful discussion on organizational structures and power and
how systems or a "systems/learning organization" perspective interfaces
with these.

Mike Gurstein
From: Mike Gurstein <mikeg@nywork2.undp.org>