Resistance to change in the organization - Causes and attitudes -

Especially in 2021, the changes we face every day, both in personal and professional life, appear and follow one another very quickly. We have to deal with them, adapting and fulfilling the best version of our own personality. Adaptation to change involves overcoming and resolving the mechanisms of resistance to change.

To overcome this resistance it is important to know the causes that make us resistant to change, which prevent us from embracing change which turns it into opportunities for growth.

The lack of trust is one of the causes of our resistance to change. Rick Maurer (2009) considers that the lack of confidence in the proposed or even imposed changes is manifested on three levels: 1. cognitive / rational - I do not understand the change, 2. emotional - I do not like the change, 3. Relational - I do not I like you (the one who proposes the change). Knowing the level where resistance occurs determines the attitudes that are necessary to reduce this resistance. For example, for resistance level 1, clarifications are needed about why the proposed changes are needed, and for resistance level 3, it is important that those who communicate change are leaders who have already gained the trust of those that have to accept the change.

Emotional responsiveness is another cause of resistance to change, and here it is important that those who propose change be able to control these emotions. Emotional control can be achieved taking into account the emotional curve of adaptation to change: denial, anger, negotiation, depression / despair, acceptance. Every human being, in the moment he faces a change, with a loss of something significant for his own person, goes through this emotional path, even if at a different level of intensity and rhythm.

Fear of failure is the third leading cause of resistance to change. People will not tolerate a change if they do not trust their ability to adapt to that change. If employees feel threatened by their own limitations, they will protect themselves by resisting to the proposed change. To mitigate the effects of this cause, change promoters provide knowledge development training to provide the tools needed to adapt to change, and then empower people to use that knowledge and tools, which will give them confidence to apply the effects of change.

Organizational change always comes with a reason, never just for the sake of change, and the members of the organization must be accompanied in the process of adapting to the proposed changes, sometimes negotiable, sometimes not. Concern for this aspect defines a competent management, concerned with the performance of the organization it represents.