Teaching Managers to Embrace Change

(This is the 3rd post in a series on the five critical areas where managers go awry.)

Avoiding change is human and very understandable, but dangerous - even for a brand. We spend a great deal of time planning how to implement changes, but we rarely plan for resistance.

Unit-level resistance to change is more common, but it’s the corporate-level resistance that is the most harmful. It could be a line cook who doesn’t see the need to do things differently, or a CEO trying to “ride out” a final few years until retirement. Sometimes symptoms are easy to identify: a manager who complains that it won’t work (“We tried that 12 years ago … ”), or even sabotage. However, the most damaging form of resistance is silent and nearly invisible.

Many years ago, when microwaves were new and very expensive, I worked in a kitchen where management purchased a unit and installed it next to the broiler station. A few weeks later the manager asked the cook if he was using it. “Yes, all the time,” came the answer. The manager walked away and never found out the cook was using the unit as a cabinet to hold his glass of iced tea.

When contemplating making a change, plan for those people who just want things to stay the same. As I mentioned in my last post, dictatorial approaches work best only in the short term. If you really want to effect change, play devil’s advocate to work through the range of potential objections with some equally serious planning about how you’ll address resistance to change to overcome it.

Most resistance can be addressed by better information and education — about the reasoning behind the change and about how the change will be executed. Running a “pilot” with managers that are not change-averse may be a great help, as other managers will then have peers who can show the way, as well as answer skeptics’ questions. If you suspect corporate leadership is dragging their feet, bring in an outside “change agent” to talk about best practices and run through exercises that will bring the resistance to the forefront.

And remember, whatever you practice, you get good at. So, maybe if your organization is too resistant, it’s an indicator that you need to practice change more frequently!