How to give your employees a reason to embrace change, not resist it

When organisations are going through change, the first thing they always ask is: why are our people resisting this change? 

Often it’s by the leaders who are frustrated that their carefully planned transformation isn’t being embraced as quickly as they expected, or by project teams who feel they have explained the change clearly but are still hearing concerns and pushback from employees. Now while people absolutely can and do resist change, we aren’t convinced that “resistance” is always the most helpful way to think about it.

In fact, sometimes the word itself sends us down the wrong path.

When we describe someone as “resistant”, we can easily make the assumption that the problem sits with them. They’re resistant, or they don’t understand. They’re being difficult, they don’t want to change or they're standing in the way of progress. What if… what we’re calling resistance is actually simply feedback?

What if someone pushing back is someone telling us something important about the change, the way it has been introduced, the way it affects them or the way it has been communicated? All of which changes the conversation completely from asking why folks are resisting, to why people are reacting the way they are. 

Change can feel very personal

There’s a basic psychological reason why people can react negatively to organisational change: humans don’t particularly like being told what to do.

There’s a concept called psychological reactance, which describes the tendency for people to push back when they feel their freedom or autonomy is being threatened. When people perceive that a change will have a negative impact on them, and they also feel that they have little control over what happens, they are more likely to react negatively.

Think about what that feels like from an employee’s perspective. Your organisation announces a restructure, a new system, a new way of working or a change to your location, your team, your processes or your responsibilities. Hence, you’re told what is happening - you’re given a timeline. Perhaps you’re even provided with a beautifully designed communication explaining why the change is necessary… but that doesn’t negate that you didn’t make the decision, it was made for you, or to you.

You don’t necessarily understand what it means for you, and you’re not sure whether anyone will listen to your concerns. Plus, you have very little influence over what happens next. So is it really all that surprising if you felt uncomfortable?

This is why we need to be careful about treating resistance as a problem that needs to be eliminated. Sometimes it is simply a very human response to uncertainty, a perceived loss of control or a fear about what the future might look like.

Communication can’t make a bad change good

This is particularly important for communication professionals because there can be a temptation to think that if we just get the communication right, people will get on board. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Communication can help people understand a change and yes, it can make the change more tangible and relevant. It can also give people opportunities to ask questions and provide feedback or help leaders have better conversations with their teams; but communication alone cannot make a fundamentally bad change good.

If the change has been poorly designed, if leaders aren’t prepared to listen, if people’s legitimate concerns are being dismissed or if the organisation has failed to think through the impact on its people, there is only so much communication can do. It’s like the old saying goes: you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

That’s why good change communication starts long before someone asks the comms team to “put together an announcement”. It actually starts with understanding the people who are going to experience the change and thinking of it from their lens with curiosity. So, asking things like:

What might they be worried about? What might they misunderstand? What might they lose? What could make the change difficult for them? What questions are they likely to have? Where do they have influence, and where don’t they?

The answers to those questions should shape not just the communication, but the change itself wherever possible.

People are more likely to support what they help create

One of the biggest differences between a change happening to people and a change happening with people is involvement. When people have some skin in the game, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership. No, that doesn’t necessarily mean giving everyone the power to decide whether the change happens; sometimes the decision has already been made and there is no going back. However, there are usually plenty of things people can influence.

They might be able to help test a new system, identify problems with a new process, contribute to implementation planning or provide feedback on how the change will work in their part of the organisation. They might help shape the supporting resources or even contribute to the communication itself. Those opportunities can make a significant difference because there is a psychological shift that happens when people feel they have had a hand in creating something.

Instead of thinking, “They’re making me do this,” they can start thinking, “I had a role in making this work.” That sense of ownership is incredibly valuable during change.

It also gives communicators something much more meaningful to talk about. Instead of telling people that leaders have listened, you can show them how people have been involved, what feedback has been provided and what has changed as a result. Which is, of course, much more powerful than simply saying, “We value your feedback.”

The messenger matters more than we sometimes realise

Another reason people can appear resistant is that we often rely too heavily on broadcast communication. A CEO email goes out to the entire organisation, a town hall is held, an intranet page is published, the recording is uploaded and ultimately, the communication plan says the message has been delivered.

But… has it actually been communicated? Do people understand it? Have they paid attention?

There’s a big difference between distributing information and having a conversation. A whole-of-company email might explain what is changing, but it probably won’t answer the question sitting in an individual employee’s head: “What does this mean for me?”

This is where leaders become so important.

For example, if I hear about a major change from a CEO I have never met, it might feel quite distant. But if my direct manager sits down with me and explains what the change means for my team, my role and my day-to-day work, it suddenly becomes much more tangible.

That’s why good change communication needs to create space for two-way conversations, not just moments where information is pushed out to employees.

Listening is part of communicating

It sounds obvious, but one of the most important things a change communicator can do is listen. Not just at the beginning of the project, when you’re trying to understand your audience, but throughout the entire change.

Listen to what people are worried about, excited about, what they don’t understand or what they think is going to get in the way. Then, do something with what you hear.

No, not by necessarily sending another employee survey - sometimes a simple ten-minute conversation with someone from the frontline can tell you far more than a questionnaire with 20 carefully constructed questions.

If you’re progressively rolling out a new system or process, for example, talk to the first groups who experience it. Find out what worked, what didn’t and what surprised them and then use that information to make the next phase better.

That is where communication becomes dynamic rather than static. Your communication plan is the starting point, not the finish line, which means the moment you start implementing change, you will start learning things you couldn’t possibly have known when you wrote the plan.

The people experiencing the change will tell you everything you need to know if you create the space to listen, and when you do listen, make sure you circle back and let people know what you heard and what you’re doing with their feedback.

Sometimes resistance is actually a communication problem

Sometimes what looks like resistance is simply a lack of information.

If people only understand parts of a change, they will naturally have questions and if they can’t find the answers to those questions, they will become frustrated. If the information is written in language that doesn’t relate to their role, they may switch off and if there are gaps in the story, people will fill those gaps themselves.

That’s where communicators have a very practical role to play - we need to make change easy to understand and easy to access. That sounds simple, but organisations get this wrong all the time.

We put important information on an intranet and assume everyone will read it, even though large parts of the workforce rarely access the intranet. We hold a town hall and assume everyone will watch the replay, or we send a long email and assume people will read to the end.

We communicate where it is convenient for the organisation rather than where it is useful for the audience… but good change communication starts with the audience instead, with questions like:

Where do they actually get information? Who do they trust? What do they need to know right now? What can wait? What language will make sense to them? What is the simplest way to explain what is changing and what they need to do?

Perhaps the goal isn’t to eliminate resistance

Our job as change communicators shouldn’t be to eliminate every negative reaction, nor should it be to convince everyone that the change is wonderful. Our job is to help people understand what is happening, why it is happening, what it means for them and what they can do about it.

We need to create opportunities for people to have a voice, ask questions and raise concerns while equipping leaders to have meaningful conversations rather than simply hand them a script. Then, we need to listen closely enough to recognise when resistance is actually telling us something we need to know.