In my work with organizations, I often hear someone say that “so and so” is resistant to change. When I hear that, what pops into my mind is, “Well a different hypothesis is that “so and so” is sometimes resistant or even frequently resistant to change.” That’s a slight change in language, but a big difference in meaning. The first makes being resistant a characteristic of the individual. The second is a behavior that the individual exhibits in some situations.
I’m using “resistant” here for whatever label is being attributed. It could be, “not being a team player,” “being uncooperative,” “being closed,” or “egotistical.” So every time I write “resistant,” substitute the word that’s heard most frequently in your organization.
I would suggest that in some situations each of us has found ourselves resisting. But, if we heard someone label us “resistant,” we would probably respond that we had good reasons for resisting! After all, maybe no one bothered to provide us the information we would have needed to understand. Or maybe we could see that the idea had a lot of problems. Or maybe putting that idea into place would have really messed up something we were working on. It is certainly never a label we would put on ourselves because we fully understand the reasons for our resistance.
However, there is an advantage to viewing resistance as a personal characteristic. The advantage is that it allows us to give up on the person. We can just write him off mentally. We don’t have to struggle with our own incompetence in interacting with him because we have decided there is something wrong with him that makes him not worth our while.
Of course, there is also a great danger in viewing resistance as a personal characteristic. The risk is that our view will hold the person in that place. We know this from all the studies conducted on the Pygmalion or Rosenthal effect - the phenomenon whereby our higher expectations of a person leads to an increase in her performance, likewise when we have lower expectations of a person it results in poorer performance. How we view a person becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We prevent ourselves from ever learning that the person has or could change. And most dangerous, if the person is really not resisting on this particular issue but instead has a legitimate point, we’ll never hear it. Oops!
The idea that someone resists because the decision will cost him or harm him in some way seems altogether logical to me. It is reasonable to resist a change that will harm us. It is not reasonable to roll over and play dead.
So how can we find out if a person has reasons that make sense to her? The answer is to ask her. If we can discover her reasoning, we may see that it is based on a concern that we can fix or satisfy in some way, or we may find that our idea has a flaw that we needed to know about. But how to ask takes some thought. We certainly don’t want to say, “Why do you always resist the changes I propose?” That clearly won’t get us anywhere.
To make asking work we have to firmly hold in our minds that the person has a reason that makes sense to him. We don’t have to assume he is right, just that the reason makes sense to him. And we have to leave open a little doubt in our mind about our own rightness. If we can’t hold on to that, then we shouldn’t ask, because it won’t work. I’m going to call asking with that mindset, an inquiry, to differentiate it from our typical way of asking. The success of an inquiry is totally dependent on phrasing the inquiry in a way that reflects that mindset. Here are a couple of examples of inquiry.
- “I noticed when I introduced xxxx today, you didn’t say much. I recognize that you work with xxx every day, so I wanted to ask what problems you see that I may not be aware of.” (By not saying if he sees problems, rather what problems, I acknowledge that it is legitimate for him to see something that concerns him.)
- “As I’ve talked with others about xxxx, I’ve heard a range of views; I was wondering how you see xxxx benefiting or causing the team problems.” (I’m acknowledging that there may be unintended consequences I may not be aware of)
Here is the inquiry formula to use if you make the assumption the other has a reason that makes sense to him.
Explain why I’m asking --> indicate that I’m open to learning that I don’t know everything --> legitimize her having a different view --> ask to hear her thinking --> 1) fix her situation or 2) improve my original idea or 3) say I can’t do anything about it and ensure that she knows she has to do it.
Here’s the formula to use if you assume the other is just a resistant person.
This person is resistant --> no need to ask --> just ensure that he knows he has to do it.
Using either formula you might end up in the same place. But using inquiry offers the possibility of change, in you or the other person, while asking ensures no change.