Most change in organizations doesn’t fail because the plan was bad. It fails because people didn’t go along with it. They kept using the old spreadsheet, found workarounds, complained in the lunchroom, or simply waited for the new idea to go away.
That reaction is what we call resistance to change. It’s one of the most common problems managers face, and it sits at the heart of change management. In this article we’ll look at what resistance actually looks like, why employees resist, and what managers can do about it. We’ll also look at a more recent idea: that resistance isn’t always the employee’s fault, and sometimes it’s useful.
What is Resistance to Change?
Resistance to change is any response from employees that slows down, weakens or blocks a change the organization is trying to make. That covers a wide range of behavior.
Some resistance is open and immediate. People object in meetings, write complaints, threaten to quit, or (in a unionized workplace) raise a formal dispute. This kind is actually easier to deal with, because the manager can see it and respond.
Other resistance is quiet or delayed. People say yes in the meeting and then don’t change what they do. Motivation drops. Mistakes creep in. Absences go up a little. Six months later, the change is “done” on paper but nothing much is different. This kind is harder, because the link between the change and the reaction isn’t obvious.
A Running Example: The New Customer System
This is a hypothetical example.
Imagine a call centre with 40 agents and four team leaders. For years they’ve used an old customer database. It’s clunky, but everyone knows its shortcuts. Head office decides to replace it with a new customer relationship management (CRM) system. Calls will be logged differently, scripts will change, and managers will be able to see much more detail about each agent’s call times and outcomes.
Training is a two-hour session the week before go-live. The announcement email talks about “efficiency” and “visibility.”
Within a month, the team leaders notice a few things. Several experienced agents are still keeping notes in the old system “just in case.” Average call times have gone up. Two agents have asked whether the new reports will be used to performance-manage people. One of the most capable agents has started looking for another job.
We’ll come back to this call centre throughout the article.
Why Do Employees Resist Change?
It’s tempting to think resistant employees are just stubborn. Sometimes that’s true. But usually there are understandable reasons behind it, and a manager who knows the reasons is in a much better position to respond.
One of the most widely taught explanations comes from John Kotter and Leonard Schlesinger, in their 1979 Harvard Business Review article “Choosing Strategies for Change.” They identified four common reasons people resist.
1. Self-interest
People worry they’ll lose something they value: status, pay, job security, control over their work, or a skill that used to make them special. In our call centre, the experienced agents were the ones who knew every trick in the old database. The new system wipes out that advantage overnight. That’s a real loss, even if nobody says it out loud.
2. Misunderstanding and lack of trust
When people don’t understand why a change is happening, or don’t trust the people behind it, they fill the gap with their own explanation. And it’s usually a worse one. “Visibility” in the announcement email sounded, to some agents, like “we’re going to watch you more closely.” Without a clear explanation of how the call data would be used, the agents’ suspicion was a fairly reasonable guess.
3. Different assessments
Sometimes employees simply disagree with management about whether the change is a good idea. And sometimes they’re right. Agents deal with customers every day. If they think the new scripts sound robotic and will annoy callers, that’s information management should want to hear.
4. Low tolerance for change
Some people find change more stressful than others. They prefer routine, they worry about whether they’ll be able to learn the new way, or they feel anxious until things settle. This isn’t a character flaw. It just means the same change will feel very different to different members of the team.
Habits, groups and the organization itself
We’ve also got to think beyond the individual. Habits are powerful, and the old way of doing things is often built into the work without anyone noticing. Teams develop their own norms, so even an agent who likes the new system might hold back if the rest of the team is complaining about it. And organizations have their own inertia: reward systems, job descriptions and reporting lines that were built for the old way of working. If head office changes the system but still rewards agents only on calls handled per hour, and calls now take longer, the agents have every reason to resist.
Is Resistance Always a Bad Thing?
Not necessarily. For a long time, resistance was treated as something to overcome, almost like friction in a machine. More recent thinking has pushed back on that.
In a 2008 article in the Academy of Management Review, Jeffrey Ford, Laurie Ford and Angelo D’Amelio argued that the usual story puts all the blame on the “resistors.” They pointed out that change agents often contribute to the resistance themselves, for example by breaking earlier promises, communicating poorly, or failing to rebuild trust after past changes went badly. They also argued that resistance can be a resource. It keeps a change in the conversation, it surfaces problems, and it can lead to a better result.
So what does that mean in our call centre? The agents asking about performance management are raising a fair question. The agents keeping notes in the old system may have spotted that some customer information didn’t migrate properly. A good team leader treats those reactions as a signal to check something, not just as people being difficult.
That doesn’t mean every complaint is wise. But it does mean the first question shouldn’t be “How do I get them to stop resisting?” It should be “What is this resistance telling me?”
How Can Managers Reduce Resistance?
Kotter and Schlesinger also set out six broad approaches managers can use. Each one has a place, and each one has costs. Let’s look at them with the call centre in mind.
Education and communication
Explain the reasons for the change, early and honestly. This works well when the resistance comes from misunderstanding. In the call centre, a clear explanation of what the CRM data would and wouldn’t be used for could have defused a lot of the worry. The catch is that it only works if people trust the person doing the explaining, and it takes time.
Participation and involvement
Involve the people affected in designing and rolling out the change. This is one of the oldest findings in this area. In 1948, Lester Coch and John French published a study from a pajama factory, Harwood Manufacturing, where work methods were being changed. Groups of workers who took part in planning the changes adapted much better than a group that was simply told about them, which showed lower output and more people quitting.
In our example, the call centre could have asked a few experienced agents to test the system before launch and help shape the new scripts. They’d likely have spotted problems early, and their colleagues would be more willing to trust a system “our people” helped build. The downside is that participation takes time, and it can lead to a watered-down change if it isn’t managed well.
Facilitation and support
Give people the training, time and emotional support they need to adjust. Two hours of training a week before go-live isn’t much for a system that changes how every call is handled. Extra coaching, a buddy system, or a temporary easing of call-time targets would all fit here. This approach suits resistance driven by anxiety. It can be expensive, and it doesn’t fix things if people have a genuine disagreement with the change.
Negotiation and agreement
Offer something in return for accepting the change. For example, management might agree that call-time data won’t be used in performance reviews for the first six months. This makes sense when a group clearly stands to lose something and has the power to resist. The risk is that it can get expensive, and it may encourage others to hold out for a deal too.
Manipulation and co-optation
Co-optation means giving a resistant leader a role in the change, often a symbolic one, to win them over. Manipulation includes selectively sharing information or framing it in a misleading way. These approaches might work quickly, but they’re risky. If people feel they’ve been tricked, trust falls apart and the next change becomes even harder. Most students and managers should see this one as a warning, not a tactic.
Explicit and implicit coercion
This means forcing the change through, with threats of job loss, transfer or missed promotion. Kotter and Schlesinger saw it as a last resort, for example when speed is essential and there’s no realistic alternative. It can get the change done, but it often leaves lasting resentment. In our call centre, telling agents “use the new system or you’re out” might stop the workarounds, but it wouldn’t stop that capable agent from leaving.
Choosing the Right Approach
There isn’t one best method. Kotter and Schlesinger’s point was that managers should match the approach to the reason for the resistance and the situation. If people don’t understand the change, communicate. If they’re anxious, support them. If they’re going to lose something real, negotiation may be fair. If speed matters more than anything, more forceful approaches may be used, but with the costs in mind.
In practice, most good change programs mix several approaches. Looking back at the call centre, a better rollout might have looked like this: explain the reasons and the data rules clearly, involve a handful of agents in testing, provide more training and coaching, and adjust call-time targets while people learn. None of that is complicated. It just takes more planning and more time than a two-hour session and an email.
It also helps to think about change as a process rather than a single event. Lewin’s change management model is useful here, because a lot of resistance shows up when an organization tries to move people before it has “unfrozen” the old way of working.
And fairness matters. Employees pay close attention to how a change is decided and how they’re treated along the way, not only to the outcome. We saw this in the site’s analysis of NatWest’s return-to-office rule, where questions about fair process were a big part of the story.
What Does This Mean for Managers?
A few practical points come out of all this.
First, expect resistance. It’s a normal human response, not a sign that the change is doomed or that the team is bad.
Second, find out what’s behind it before you respond. The same behavior (agents keeping notes in the old system) could come from fear, from a genuine problem with the new system, or from a lack of training. Each needs a different response.
Third, think about who you might lose. Resistance doesn’t always show up as complaints. Sometimes it shows up as your best people quietly deciding to leave. Change can also shake people’s commitment to the organization, especially the emotional attachment that keeps good staff around.
And finally, be honest. Manipulation and vague announcements might save time this month, but they make the next change harder.
Key Points to Take Away
- Resistance to change is any employee response that slows down, weakens or blocks a change. It can be open and immediate, or quiet and delayed.
- Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) identified four common reasons for resistance: self-interest, misunderstanding and lack of trust, different assessments of the change, and low tolerance for change.
- Habits, group norms and the organization’s own systems (such as rewards and targets) can also hold change back.
- Resistance isn’t always bad. It can point to real problems with the change, and change agents sometimes create it themselves (Ford, Ford and D’Amelio, 2008).
- Managers can use education, participation, support, negotiation, co-optation or coercion. The best choice depends on the reason for the resistance, and the more forceful options carry real costs to trust.
- Involving employees in the change is one of the oldest and most consistent pieces of advice, going back to Coch and French’s 1948 factory study.
Sources
- Kotter, J. P. and Schlesinger, L. A. (1979, reprinted 2008). Choosing Strategies for Change. Harvard Business Review.
- Coch, L. and French, J. R. P. (1948). Overcoming Resistance to Change. Human Relations, 1(4), 512-532.
- Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W. and D’Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362-377.