Resistance, the Echo of Change

In the new century, when business and political leaders-indeed, entire governments-assert their dedication to change, but how to manage the reactions to that change may be the greatest challenge. Change creates anxiety, uncertainty and stress, even for those managing change, and even of they are fully committed to change (Carnall, 1990, p.138). These reactions often are lumped under “resistance” to change. Resistance is habitually a reaction to a loss of control, not necessarily to the change itself. The less knowledge for a person to know the rational for the change and the implications of the change and how to operate the change, the greater the threat to that person’s control over his or her environment (Jick and Peiperl, 2003). Resistance to change seems to be always more powerful in strategic changes (Del Val and Fuentes, 2003)

In the organizations, employees will often psychologically resist change when it involves altering their work values and self-concept; some professionals find marketing and administration duties unsatisfying when they take up time that could have been spent executing professional work (Whittington, McNulty and Whipp, 1994).
Many professionals in the public and in the private sector are facing increased responsibility for marketing and administration and some of them are unsure how much of their newly defined role they should accept their reluctance to change is partly a consequence of their occupational commitment to professional work; their unwillingness to take on more duties is rarely just a case of irrational resistance (Morris and Pinnington, 1998)

Why resistance to change
As mentioned before, resistance is a natural phenomenon in change progress.The failure of many large-scale corporate change programs can be traced directly to employee resistance (Maurer, 1997).During 1993 and1996, 500 large Australian organizations revealed that employee resistance was the most frequently cited implementation problem encountered by management when introducing change (Bovey and Hede, 2001).Why is there resistance to change in the organization?And what then are the sources of resistance to organizational change?Ford, Ford and McNamara (2002) explained that resistance occurs because it threatens the status quo, or increases fear and the anxiety of real or imagined consequences including threats to personal security and confidence in an ability to perform.In addition, Change threatens the way people make sense of the world, calling into question their values and rationality, and prompting some form of self-justification or defensive reasoning.Or, people distrust or have past resentments toward those leading change; they have different understandings or assessments of the situation, or are protecting established social relations that are perceived to be threatened.
Resistance to change occurs when it creates too much role incompatibility for employees.Expecting shop-floor workers to communicate with a larger number of teams and managers in the plant will mean they have to adopt a broader role set; that is, they will have to cooperate with various groups and learn to behave and respond to different expectations.Some employees will find developing a broader set of relationships at work to be a stimulating new challenge and personally fulfilling; however, others may find these new relationships to be incompatible with their more restricted concept of self, and experience increased role strain and stress.People who are "resistant" are not necessarily being stubborn but may be slower in having "insight" into the situation (Pinnington and Lafferty, 2003) Effective change has been characterized as unfreezing old behaviours, introducing new ones, and re-freezing them (Appelbaum and Wohl, 2000).Change is difficult and threatening.It is natural for change to be met with resistancepeople resist things they are unsure of.The bigger of change, the greater resistance to create change (Maurer, 1998).People resist change due to many factors, some of which are a lack of information on the proposed change and a comfort in the stable environment to which they have become accustomed and in which they find predictability and security (Weiss, 1998).As an example, aging baby-boomers are moving into risk-averse zones.Facing personal, financial and career changes, they want change without high risk (Tapsell, 1998).Effective strategic change requires approaches to leadership that are more likely to enhance workplace change through employee participation, motivation and commitment.Change can only succeed if it is based solidly on an understanding of how people behave, what motivates them, and how improved positive attitudes can be developed (Zeffane, 1996).
Bennis (1973( , cited in Coghlan, 1993, pp.10-11) , pp.10-11) suggests six types of response that individuals may mobilize: oppose, resist, tolerate, accept, support and embrace.Since every change involves some forms of loss and disappearance of something familiar, the choice of these responses is affected by the degree of ambiguity of the change, the degree of control over the change and environment, the degree of trust in the change initiators.Meet with organizational changes, employees often wonder what the goal of the change is, why need to change, what benefits it brings to company and to me, and what affects my own work and job development etc, because changes requires going from the known to the unknown (Bovey & Hede, 2001, p.534).Lack in satisfying information and understanding of change, change may be misunderstood, and at the same time all kinds of different attitudes will appear, besides acceptance and support, suspicion, disbelief, refusal, and denial will also be shown in front of managers.And thus, resistance emerges.
Understanding the sources of resistance allows creation of a management strategy to deal with it.To resolve resistance, a manager must willingly explore what causes it.There is no other way.O' Connor (1993) believes that resistance results from differences involving ideas, motives, plans, or priorities, and brought forward five common sources of resistance as follows: (1) Lack of belief that there is a serious need for change.
(2) Different descriptions of the need for change.
(3) No agreement about goals for change.
(4) Lack of belief that the goal is attainable.
(5) No confidence in the manager of change.
Recognizing the sources of resistance guides the development of better understanding.And once a source of resistance is identified, managers can encourage the debate of issue about the identified source and work to integrate these differences and therefore minimize resistance.

Resistance, as enemy in change
In recent society, change is considered as inevitability for many organizations.However, nearly two-thirds of major change programs prove unsuccessful and, according to Fortune 500 executives, the primary reason for this is not a lack of skill or resource, but resistance (Anonymous, 2002, p.21).Resistance is therefore understood to be the enemy of change.

Rational vs. Irrational Resistance
Rational resistance can occur where an individual's own rational assessment of change outcomes differ from these of management.So it can be overcome with reasonable explanation for any proposed change (Jager, 2001, p.26).If the reasons to change are persuasive enough, then resistors will willingly adopt the change.
Taking on something new largely means giving up something that is familiar, comfortable and predictable, so people will feel that they are uninvolved in new process.Another rational reason why people resist change is that they fear having to learn something new.Sometimes it is not that they disagree with the benefits of some new process; rather, they simply fear the unknown future and doubt their ability to adapt to it (Davidson, 2002, p.21).In another words, it means fear may stop people from taking first steps to change, even when they know that the result of change will greatly benefit them.However, irrational resistance does exist, too.It means individual reaction to change is also a function of predispositions and preferences not necessarily based on a rational assessment of change (Anonymous, 2002, p.22).Simply speaking, there are a few people never accept change, even if evidence, proof, demonstration, or persuasion are urging them to willingly adopt the change.They simply don't want to change, and they always find a problem with any changes.According to Geisler (2001), these people are so-called bottom-feeders, who seem to be the most dissatisfied and the most vocal.Resistance therefore becomes an enemy that is a serious preventer in the change process, and hard to conquer.

Resistance, as assistance in change
Usually, resistance is regarded as an obstacle that prevents change process from successful developing.So people always try to compete with it until diminishes.But in fact, as an essential element in understanding any change progress, it is not totally passive, but is rather a powerful, effective, and dynamic energy.Handled properly, it can serve as a valuable assistance and contribution to the change process (Coghlan, 1993, p.11;Heifetz & Linsky, 2002, p.69;Jager, 2001, p.24).But it should be remembered that it is a fallacy to consider change itself to be inherently good, because change can only be evaluated to be good or not through its consequences until sufficient time has passed (Anonymous, 2002, p.22).
Appearance of resistance may mean an influx of energy added into the change process.Those employees who resist plan for change may in fact have different definitions of the problem or beliefs about its seriousness.Monitoring these different responses and listening to them will make managers aware of the issues that need to be addressed during the change process (Freda, Arn & Gatlin-Watts, 1999, pp.32-33).There is a real danger of apathy when dealing with significant program where resistance occurs.It is impossible for managers to examine more closely the sources of the existing problems, which means latent crisis to change in the long run.In this respect resistance can become a useful source of innovation.Furthermore, without resistance, any proposal favoured by managers will be accepted, which can be detrimental to lead to an organizational change limitation (Anonymous, 2002, p.23).
CEO of Belgian Telecommunication Co. (Vas, 2001, p.84) has said in an interview that resistance sometimes is not against change; it means a shortage of personnel, unready process and unsuccessful data processing on time that is what people criticize, not in itself.In other words, resistance reveals defects behind of an organization, and assists to find out better resolvents.As a result, more and more major organizational changes or innovations start to anticipate resistance, especially if proposed changes alter values and visions related to the existing order (Trader-leigh, 2002, p.139).All in all, facing resistance, we cannot deny and reject it blindly, but listen, learn, understand and lead it.

How to overcome the resistance
King and Anderson cited Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) that there are six strategies overcoming the resistance: communication, participation, facilitation, negotiation, manipulation and coercion.

5.1Facilitation
Many organizations still believe that their success depends largely on the commitment of their employees (Emshoff, 1994).Appelbaum and Wohl cited Dowd (1998) that managers must provide support during the change process.Making oneself available, providing adequate information, being positive, actively listening, and showing personal interest and respect are strategies that mangers can use to help minimize the frustration of those coping with change.The manager should try to preserve the dignity of those negatively affected by change and help staff to find an outlet for their anger and frustration.The manager must also recognize that employees may suffer a sense of loss during a change process and that change may be painful.A supportive approach by the manager can minimize these elements that may increase resistance to the change.For example, in downsizing organizations, for the laid-off worker, organizations can provide help in outplacement services, redeployment.Meanwhile, the surviving employees will act as they see appropriate according to how the organization treated its laid off workers.When they perceived that layoff victims had been properly taken care of, they reacted positively, then performing as well as they had and feeling as loyal as the organizations as before (Appelbaum, Everard and Hung, 1999)

Participation
Employees should be involved in decision-making and new program development.It is one of the best methods of handling resistance, simply because that employee involvement in the stage of a change process significantly influences the eventual outcome.Change has a significant impact on the work that people do, will have a significant impact on their self-esteem (Carnall, 1990, pp.138-141).People will feel better about a decision in which they played a part, because they experience a sense of ownership that are likely to creatively change aspects of their organizations to solve problem and to exert extra effort to develop their products or services (Dirks, Cummings & Pierce, 1996).Thus their self-esteem will be enhanced to a certain height, and they won't show resistance to change any more, even they will feel angry to others who disagrees the change process they participate in.and experience it less intensely (Dowd, 1998)

Conclusion
In recent society, change is considered as inevitability for many organizations.Resistance to change is an essential factor to be considered in any change process, since a proper management of resistance is the key for change success or failure.Resistance is a natural and normal response to change because change often involves going from the known to the unknown (Coghlan, 1993).Resistance is a powerful organizational force.Although it is impossible to eliminate the resistance, it still needs to set up a better way to manage the resistance and try to minimize it.Use the knowledge to confront it.To begin with, educating employees can make them understand their roles and functions in making change happen.In addition, when the managers will do more clear and honest communication throughout the organization, which can be in reducing anxiety and harnessing assistance at all levels.What is more, foster and create employees to test the new change and give some recommendations with the new way of operating.Motivating and retaining employees' opportunities to participate in decision is an important aspect.Further more; managers are not only responsibility to the company, but also to the employees.It is better for them to negotiate with the employees and try to make agreement.Finally, using some manipulation and coercion strategies can identify and overcome potential sources of resistance as well and make the organization survive and thrive.