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· Reference #1 - Hodges, J. & Gill, R. (2015). Sustaining Change in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications

The Nature, Impact and Management of Attitudes Towards Change

11

Overview

•    To understand why people react to change the way they do, leaders and managers need to view the change from other people’s perspectives tounderstand the concerns people have about change.

•    Responses to change will vary depending on the nature and impact the change has on individuals.

•    Attitudes to change range from positive acceptance to scepticism and cynicism to outright opposition. Many individuals do respond positively tochange.

•    Trust is a condition for successful change. Employees’ trust in leaders and managers, as well as in the organization, is an expression of confidence in their reliability and honesty in times of change and uncertainty (Zeffane and Connell, 2003). Organizational change initiatives can significantly erode trust both in the organization and in its management (Morgan and Zeffane, 2003).

•    Gaining commitment and involving people in the change can build trust and positive attitudes towards the change. Participation in the changeprocess is important for helping to reduce negative responses to change by reducing anxiety, creating a stronger sense of ownership and enabling individuals to actively contribute to the shaping of change.

People are at the core of sustaining change in organizations and also represent the greatest challenge to the mastery of change. Structures, systems, processes and strategies are relatively simple to understand and even fix. People, however, are more complex. They have different backgrounds, abilities, personalities, dispositions, ‘hang-ups’, interests, motivations and aspirations. Change can have a different impact on each individual, all of which can cause different attitudes and reactions. The complexities of human responses to change are often ignored when change is planned. According to Woodward and Hendry (2004: 164), one-third of senior managers acknowledge that the people aspects are ignored in their changeprogrammes. This is quite a shocking statistic, for as Jick and Peiperl (2003) point out, any organization that believes change can take hold without considering how people will react to it is in deep delusion. Choi (2011) echoes this and observes that change often fails because those leading the change pay insufficient attention to how change affects individuals.

Leaders need to be aware of the attitudes towards change of their employees, such as:

•    What might be their anticipated emotional and attitudinal reactions to the change?

•    What determines employees’ willingness to change and how can it be influenced?

•    What different responses can be expected from different people?

•    How can this information be used in planning the change?

Leaders often gloss over such issues, yet it is human behaviour that ultimately will sustain change in organizations. Yet as Bridges (1980) points out, many managers are wise about the mechanics of change but are often unaware of the dynamics of the transition that people go through. Leading people through change therefore requires an understanding and respect of how change affects individuals. No organization can institute change if its employees will not, at the very least, accept the change. No change will work if employees do not help in the effort, as change is not possible without people changing their behaviours.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the impact of change on people and explore how leaders and managers can manage people more effectively during transitions. The chapter begins by discussing the impact of change on individuals and explores the transition issues which they face. Specifically, we consider the impact of change on behaviour and motivation, how individuals react to change, their attitudes to change and what leaders and managers can do to effectively manage the impact of change on individuals. We examine individuals’ response to change as a progression through a number of stages of psychological reaction. The chapter also considers how to gain commitment to the change from individuals and the importance of involving them in the decision-making process. The benefit of viewing resistance to change as valuable feedback rather than a threat that has to be removed is explored. Finally we review the implications for managers and leaders of the key issues discussed in the chapter and identify steps that they can take to motivate others to change.

Learning objectives

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

•    Appreciate how people at all levels in an organization react to change

•    Identify what leaders and managers can do to minimize or overcome any opposition to change

•    Appreciate the meaning and theories of resistance to change

•    Discuss the concepts of cynicism and trust, and how cynicism and trust affect change

•    Implement approaches for managing how people react to change

Individual reactions to change

Most of us are creatures of habit. We do not always appreciate changes in our daily routine, in our working practices and working environment. We may become unhappy about any loss of freedom to do certain things, for example changes in shift patterns or hours of work, or changes in our standard of living and buying power. Such reactions have been evident in the angry demonstrations in Greece against the Greek government’s severe austerity measures in 2012, in the demonstrations in Egypt and Turkey in the summer of 2013 and in the Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, as well as the one-day strike in July 2011 in the UK against the government’s plans to extend retirement ages and increase pension contributions in the public sector. For individuals there is often a sense of security in the past, the way things have always been done and which appear to have been done reasonably well (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2006). As a result, change when it is imposed on people can trigger a range of intense emotional reactions (Bartunek, 1984; Fugate et al., 2008; Huy, 2002; Kiefer, 2005), which, in turn, can influence how people behave, depending on how they view the proposed change.

The view from one’s ‘hilltop’

How individuals perceive the impact of change depends on their own personal view of it, from their own perspective – their ‘hilltop’ (see Figure 11.1). Leaders and managers will be looking at the change from their own personal  hilltops  in the organization, and what they see below may be different from what members of their staff may see who are elsewhere in the organization and looking down from their hilltops, and their views may differ from person to person. To appreciate how staff view the change, leaders and managers need to move across to the hilltops that their employees are standing on. This is a simple but effective model that has been used by one of the authors of this book with many different leaders of change in different countries. The most recent example was with professional women in the Middle East who were attempting to understand how not only women but also men from the region saw the changing role of women in society. The model has also been used very successfully with international bankers who were attempting to improve relationships with their customers whose small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were experiencing financial difficulties. Both groups – the women in the Middle East and the bankers – were encouraged to consider the view of the world from their hilltops, the view from the hilltops of others, and how their different perspectives made each group view change differently.

Figure 11.1  Hilltops

Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder, FMR Research Ltd

Employees’ concerns about change

To understand why individuals react to change the way they do, leaders and managers need to view the change from other people’s perspectives (hilltops) as well as understand the concerns they may have about change. In his TedxTalk called ‘Embracing Change’, Jason Clarke, Co-Founder of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership, talks about the real reasons why people resist as being:

•    Feeling too full of emotion and fear

•    The change being a shock to them

•    Being scared of the transition rather than the idea

•    Not being able to see how they fit into the change

•    Being fed up with phoney change that goes nowhere

Clarke proposes that people audit their understanding of change through an analysis of what they see as the positive aspects of the status quo and the negative aspects of the change. The status quo (A) is known and certain, whereas the future (B) is unproven and uncertain. Individuals may fear that moving from A to B will cause failure, loss, rejection, ridicule, risk, anxiety, blame or pain. Any of these can cause fear and anxiety, which can inhibit change. Battistelli and colleagues (2013) identify concerns that stimulate fear and propose a model that includes three specific concerns:

•    Concerns about the content of change

•    Concerns about the benefits of change

•    Concerns about mastering the change

Concerns about the content refer to worries about the impact of the occurring change on an individual’s role and the loss it may bring. For many employees their reactions to change are driven by a concern about a sense of loss (Burke, 2002; Jick and Peiperl, 2003), such as a loss of decisional power or a degrading of their position within the organization or loss of earnings or even one’s job. Losses can also be intangible or even imaginary but no less personal and painful. For example, someone whose job becomes routinized and marginalized as a result of changes introduced by the organization might see this change as a loss of status or a loss of their identity.

When experiencing concerns about the benefits of change employees may worry that the change will not bring the expected benefits for individuals or the organization. For example, employees might fear their change efforts will not be adequately rewarded or that too much time will pass before they will get the desired benefits. The perceived fairness of the outcomes resulting from a change will therefore influence individuals’ reactions (Armenakis et al., 2007).

Finally, concerns about mastering change refer to employees’ worries about not being able to successfully face the change, such as properly fulfilling new tasks, learning new ways of doing things and being enabled to effectively contribute to the change initiative. Levels and forms of concerns can vary across individuals, depending on change efforts by provoking negative consequences on a number of change-related processes and outcomes (such as commitment to change) at both the individual, team and organizational levels (Battistelli et al., 2013).

Activity

Consider a change you have personally experienced:

1    Identify the concerns you had about the change.

2    Describe how you dealt with them.

3    Explain what you would do differently if you were able to do it again.

Responses to change

During change employees tend to make a personal assessment of the impact that the change could have on factors such as their levels of responsibility and authority, their status and career prospects, their salary and job security, and the range and quality of their social relations at work (Greasly et al., 2009; Iverson, 1996). These personal assessments are likely to colour individuals’ attitudes towards the change that in turn can be expected to affect their overall reaction to the change (Elias, 2009).

When change is perceived as personally beneficial, individuals will exhibit a more positive reaction to it. For example, changes in working practices such as the introduction of flexi-time and increased opportunities to work partly from home are often well received. The greater the perceived benefits of the change, the more positive individuals’ attitudes towards the change can be expected to be and, therefore, the lower their resistance to the change is likely to be (Giangreco and Peccei, 2005).

Responses to change will vary, depending on the type of change. Some people will fight the change ‘to the death’, constantly denying that the change is necessary; while others will embrace the change readily and be willing to adjust to it. Most people are usually somewhere in between (Burke, 2002).

Cynicism

We often hear that people hate change. If this is true then we have to tell the fashion industry, because it is based entirely on the idea that people want to change how they look. Likewise, we need to tell all the people in gyms or those who are having cosmetic surgery in order to change how they look. And the politicians who fight elections to change governments. So, it would seem that people do want change but they are fed up with change that is imposed on them and does not work. This type of change can create cynicism.

Cynicism about change involves an individual’s negative attitude towards the purpose or potential success of change efforts. According to Dean and colleagues:

[Organizational cynicism is] a negative attitude towards one’s employing organization, comprising three dimensions: 1) a belief that the organization lacks integrity, 2) negative affect [emotional bond] toward the organization, and 3) tendencies to disparaging and critical behaviours toward the organization that are consistent with these beliefs and this effect. (1998: 346)

Cynicism involves a loss of faith in leaders, resulting, for example, from the experience of organizational change as a result of the latest management fad or a quick-fix attempt to address a problem (for example Reichers, Wanous, and Austin, 1997). Cynicism is a formidable adversary for any change. However, Reichers and colleagues (1997: 50) offer hope by considering cynicism as a response that ‘may simply help people tomake sense of puzzling events’. But if it is not dealt with, the price of cynicism can be high and include reduced satisfaction, less organizational commitment, less motivation to work hard, more accidents and errors, less willingness to engage in change initiatives, and the diminished credibility of leaders (Walker et al., 2007). This is illustrated in the case study (below) written by Lynne Smith about changes at the British Aerospace site at Dunsfold.

CASE STUDY

British Aerospace Dunsfold

Several years ago British Aerospace (now BAE systems) owned Dunsfold Aerodrome near Cranleigh in Surrey, UK, where the Harrier jump jet was originally conceived and built. My role was as Department Administrator for the Aerodrome Engineering Department, responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the whole site. When I first assumed this role, the Department Manager asked me to develop and implement a change-management programme for the re-skilling of the workshop employees. The existing workers consisted of electricians, carpenters and millwrights. There was a strong cultural demarcation between the jobs that they would carry out. Thus, for example, an electrician would not unblock a toilet, while a carpenter would not change a light bulb. The aim of the re-skilling programme was to make these craftsmen more multi-skilled. The reasoning behind this was that British Aerospace was looking to change to a facilities management operation at the Aerodrome. There were two options for achieving this: either to completely disband the existing Aerodrome Engineering Department and replace it with outside contractors or to change the skills of the existing workforce.

The Department Manager had already tried to implement this change and failed. As I began to explore the situation and formulate a training programme, I uncovered the reasons behind the Department Manager’s failure to achieve change and a high level of resistance to what I was trying to implement. There was a strong lack of trust in the Department Manager due to a failure on his part to deliver previous promises of change that had been suggested by the craftsmen. This was coupled with a great deal of cynicism about the change to facilities management. It had been talked about for over 12 months and was now regarded as a ‘false threat’ and something to ‘beat the workforce with’. The most interesting aspect of this scenario was that the main resistance to change was led by one particular person, who applied peer pressure to the rest of the workforce, trying to get them not to cooperate in attending training courses. Part of the re-skilling also included training in the use of a new computer-based maintenance system. There was also strong resistance to it. As time progressed, the focus of mistrust was shifted from the Department Manager to me: I was now regarded as his messenger. The other major factor in the force field of resistance was that most of the craftsmen had been employed with the company for a long time (one electrician for more than 20 years) and did not perceive any benefit in changing their working practices. Time had lulled them into a false sense of security.

My main concern was not for the resistance ‘ringleader’ but for the other employees who would have benefited greatly from the retraining schedule. External circumstances changed the picture completely. After its merger with Marconi Systems, British Aerospace announced the closure of Dunsfold. The company implemented a number of measures to deal with the future of the site workforce. The primary one was trying to redeploy them at other sites, with generous relocation packages. Another was a £1 million budget for training courses. The redeployment process involved interviewing all employees individually, determining what route they wished to pursue, whether they wished toretrain and finding the most suitable course(s) for their needs (which even included driving lessons for non-drivers who wished to find jobs further afield).

I relocated to BAE Systems’ main site at Farnborough Aerospace centre but still kept in touch with my old department at Dunsfold, which remained in place to the very end of the site-closure process. Most of the craftsmen were successful in gaining new employment and I was told that some felt the change was the best thing that could have happened to them. I did successfully implement some change, in that the level of department training increased dramatically. The presence of the change resistance ‘ringleader ‘was very stressful to deal with, especially as I had no or very little support from the Department Manager. This person used personal criticism as a weapon to try to derail whatever I was attempting to achieve. It is very difficult to communicate the benefits of change when the people involved have been working in the same situation for a very long time. If you engage people in a change dialogue, you must deliver your promises; otherwise trust and cooperation very quickly disappear.

© 2015 Lynne Smith, Business Manager, Heritage Trust.

Discussion Questions

1    How could the benefits of change have been communicated better?

2    How would you deal with someone who is irrationally determined to undermine any positive change and its advantages and benefits to a team?

3    How would you manage cynicism about a change initiative?

People do not deliberately become cynical, pessimistic or blaming. Rather, these attitudes result from experience and are sustained because they serve useful purposes. Cynicism persists because it is selectively validated by the organization’s mixed record of successful change and by other people in the organization who hold and express similar views (Reichers et al., 1997). Reichers and colleagues (1997) offer a 10-point checklist for managing and minimizing cynicism (see Table 11.1).

Table 11.1  Strategies to manage and minimize cynicism about organizational change

Managing cynicism about organizational change involves providing timely, appropriate and credible information. Cynicism can be minimized by admitting mistakes when they occur, apologizing and quickly taking appropriate corrective action. Two-way communication, whereby managers become aware of employee perceptions of change and their feelings about it, is critical to success. Addressing people’s fears helps them to ‘let go’ of their concerns long enough to give change a chance of success. The approach taken by managers has the potential to counteract the negative consequences of employee cynicism. Individuals may be much more likely to commit to organizational change if they are properly prepared for the change.

Resistance to change

Resistance to change has been described as an ongoing problem for leaders and managers and is believed to lie at the heart of most changeprogrammes (Stickland, 1998). Oreg (2003) defines such resistance as an individual’s tendency to resist and avoid making changes, to devalue change generally and to find change aversive across diverse contexts and types of change. From this perspective resistance is linked with negative employee attitudes or with counter-productive behaviours, and it is frequently perceived as intentional (Bovey and Hede, 2001). It is therefore described as a form of organizational dissent that individuals engage in when they find the change personally unpleasant or inconvenient (Peccei et al., 2011). This dissent can take a variety of forms. One form is a failure to cooperate with those responsible for the change, in the sense of failing toengage in behaviours that involve sharing commitment to the change. Another form is to avoid engaging in behaviours that promote the value of the change to others inside and outside the organization (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002).

The concept of ‘resentment-based workplace resistance’ is introduced by Folger and Skarlicki (1999) to describe the reactions of disgruntled employees against the perceived unfairness of the change. Resentment-based resistance behaviours can range from subtle acts of non-cooperation toindustrial sabotage. From this definition we learn that resistance to change can vary in terms of intensity. This idea of conceiving resistance on a continuum of intensity is also evident in Coetsee’s (1999) work. He conceives resistance as a continuum that ranges from apathy (indifference) toaggressive resistance, i.e. destructive opposition. Between these extreme poles he distinguishes two intermediate forms of resistance: passive resistance and active resistance. Passive resistance exists when mild or weak forms of opposition are encountered which are demonstrated by the existence of negative perceptions and attitudes. Examples include blocking or impeding change by voicing opposing views and rejecting the changein public.

Such resistance to change may also be displayed through storytelling by those who perceive that they are adversely affected. Patrick Dawson and Peter McLean (2013) describe how this occurred in an Australian colliery among miners who felt that management were imposing a performance appraisal system on them in a way that threatened their identity of what it meant to be a miner. Dawson and McLean say that the many stories were reflexive, subjective, sometimes partial, incomplete and prospective, sometimes providing after-the-event retrospective narratives with characters, plots and endings. Such stories are not only ways of making sense of change but also ways of exercising political leverage, in this case to subvert the appraisal system.

Active resistance is characterized by opposing behaviour such as trying to undermine the implementation of change by working to rule and slowing down activities. It may also result in personal withdrawal, which involves different distancing behaviours and cognitions ranging from intentions to quit to more subtle psychological neglect, such as not fully concentrating on work. Such withdrawal is often due to individuals’ concern or uncertainty about the proposed change and not being ready for it (Wacker et al., 2003). The following case illustrates a changeprogramme in a business school in Northern Europe, which ultimately failed owing to opposition to change.

CASE STUDY

Resistance to change

A colleague of one of the authors of this book was recruited to a senior role – as Director of Executive Education – at a university business school in Northern Europe, in order to improve the reputation, brand and quality of its Executive Education programmes. The Executive Education programmes had been neglected by the previous Director and been left to be run by a Programme Manager, who was running them in very much her own way. The arrival of a new Dean at the school, with objectives to increase the profile of the school and create leading-edge Executive Education programmes, had resulted in the appointment of the new Director, who had been approached by the Dean for the role, which had not been internally or externally advertised. The Dean had announced the appointment at a Christmas party and positioned the new Director’s arrival as if she were a ‘knight on a white horse’, charging in to save the day – or at least the Executive Education programmes. On her first day, the Dean came up and put his arms around her and said, ‘I am so glad you are here’. All seemed to go well in the early days, but it was not long before it became evident that there were serious issues and challenges to be addressed.

The first challenge was with the Executive Education team. The team had never been led and had managed to survive by working on their own and doing what they wanted. The portfolio of programmes had not been changed for more than 10 years, the quality of teaching was patchy and had not been monitored or properly evaluated. The result was declining student numbers, programmes that were stale and out of date, and a lack of reputation in the marketplace. The previous Director had preferred a laissez-faire style of management and allowed the Programme Manager to run the Executive Education programmes somewhat like a private club – holding soirées with copious amounts of wine and cheese. There was little innovation in the programmes, and it was clear that, with numbers of applicants declining, there was an urgent need for change.

The new Director began by consulting key stakeholders, including the Executive Education team, faculty, students, alumni and senior management in the business school, about the current situation and the desired future of the programmes. The Director developed a vision for the programmes, along with a strategy for making the vision real. The strategy was then drafted and circulated to key stakeholders, including the Executive Education team, for comment, although there were no comments forthcoming from the team. Adjustments were made to the vision based on feedback from the stakeholders, The document was presented to the School Advisory Board, who were very supportive of the recommendations. The strategy was agreed and signed off by the Board and the school’s senior management team. The Director then set up a meeting to discuss the implementation with the Executive Education team. At the meeting there was no response from any of the team members, except nods that they agreed with it. A plan was drafted by the Director, circulated again for comment to the team; but again no comments were received. A meeting was then held to discuss the plan and actions. Everyone agreed to the plan and the actions. But nothing happened. No actions were implemented. Nothing changed. Everyone continued to do what they had always done.

The Director ensured that the Executive Education team were consulted and kept informed of all proposed changes, and their ideas were frequently encouraged. Every attempt was made to engender trust and cooperation with transparent and frequent communication through regular team meetings, one-to-one meetings and feedback from senior management meetings. However, as the time approached to implement the strategy (implementation was not a strength of the school in the past), the barriers to change began to emerge. The recommendations in the strategy had included changes to the structure of the Executive Education team, the portfolio of programmes offered and marketing of the programmes, including changes to the website. When a meeting was held with the Executive Education team to scope out a potential structure, the Programme Manager erupted in floods of tears. The meeting was a disaster, as she refused to discuss the structure. Shortly after the meeting the Deputy Dean refused to allow any changes to take place with the structure. The status quo was being clung to by the ‘old guard’. Without changes to the structure, the strategy would be hard to implement. The dark side of politics and power began to cast its shadow as the senior management team withdrew support for the changes, except for the curriculum review and a complete overhaul of the website.

The Programme Manager was to prove the thorn in the side of the new Director and a vehement opposer of change. Indeed, she eventually showed her true colours as manipulative and deceitful. She sat in meetings about proposed changes and conscientiously wrote down everything that was said by the Director, agreed with it and then did nothing to implement what she had agreed to. At the very first team meeting she had burst into tears and said that she could not move forward until all the issues in the team were dealt with. It was to be the first of many ‘tear-induced’ meetings whenever change was mentioned. Later, again in tears, she told the new Director that she made her feel inadequate and incompetent because of their different styles. The Director, she said, was business-like and professional. The Director spent many meetings with the Programme Manager attempting to involve her in creating ideas about what needed to change but was always met with an emotional response and ‘But we can’t do that …’

Support from the senior management team began to be withdrawn. Its members began to use language such as ‘your Executive Education programmes’ when talking to the Director, rather than ‘our Executive Education programmes’. The Director was called into several meetings to justify the recommendations, despite their having been signed off. The Dean appeared to be backtracking: he began to question what was being proposed and failed to make decisions when pushed about what had been signed off for implementation.

Internal politics were rife. The Programme Manager managed to convince those around her that the change was destructive and would not work. At heart she was fighting for her status and the enclave of power she had set up for herself. She had a staunch ally in the Deputy Dean.

Within a year the Director left. The culture had beaten her. The opposition to change was too great. It was beginning to affect not only her confidence but also her health. Within three months the Programme Manager had taken over the Director’s role. The significant changes that had been made to the website for the Executive Education programmes were reversed and the site was back to advertising the curriculum as it had been before the changes were made.

Lessons learnt

When change was introduced, the internal historical culture of ‘the old guard’ and the organizational systems was left intact, creating a context in which lasting change was untenable. Metaphorically, this resembled bungee jumping, in which the organization was propelled in one direction until the cord was extended fully, whereupon it lurched back from the brink, finishing its journey within its own predetermined boundaries. Members of the senior management team were obstructive and there was strong opposition within the Executive Education team toembrace any change.

So what did the Director learn from this experience? On reflection it was tough: it made her realize that putting the theory of change into practice can be difficult because the hardest part of change can be the people part. Individuals bring their own agenda, and it can be hard to get them on side if they refuse to contemplate change. It also made the Director realize that ongoing support from senior management is vital. In this case the support was initially there – at least in terms of the right words and gestures – but as the senior management team dealt with its own internal politics and power struggles it began to backtrack on what it had initially agreed. When support disappeared, change was impossible.

Perhaps the approach to change was too transformational for the culture. Clearly there was an urgent need to do things differently, and in a short time the change had to have a fast pace, but within an environment that was used only to incremental change (if even that), the strategy toturn sinking Executive Education programmes into those that had potential to survive and grow was a step too far.

Written by Julie Hodges.

Discussion Questions

1    What could have been the reasons for the resistance to the change from the Executive Education team?

2    What might the new Director have done differently in order to gain commitment to the proposed changes?

3    To what extent was the strategy to transform the Executive Education programmes a step too far?

Resistance and the need to motivate people to change

Leaders and managers can do a number of things to minimize opposition and motivate individuals to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) propose the following approaches:

•    Education and persuasion. One of the most frequently used ways to reduce opposition to change is to present rational arguments and technical evidence to educate people about the need for change. People need to understand the logic and the need for change. Zaltman and Duncan (1977) refer to ‘educative’ strategies as those that provide a relatively unbiased presentation of the facts in order to provide a rational justification for action. This approach is based on the assumption that individuals are rational beings capable of discerning facts and adjusting their behaviour accordingly when the facts are presented to them.

•    A related approach is to persuade people to change by appealing to their emotions, presenting passionate arguments and biasing the message toincrease its appeal. Hayes (2014) points out that when the level of commitment to change is low, persuasive approaches are likely to be more effective than rational educative strategies. Persuasive approaches can increase commitment by stressing either the benefits of changing or the costs of not changing. The way a persuasive argument is framed is important. Thaler and Sunstein (2009) argue that individuals are more likely to be persuaded to change if attention is focused on what they will lose by not changing rather than on what they will gain if they do change.

•    Participation and involvement. People will be more supportive of the change if they are involved in the development and design of it. This will help them feel that they are part of the change and that it is not just being done to them. When employees are involved in the change effort they are more likely to be committed to the change. Nadler (1993) points out that involving people in the collection, analysis and presentation of information can motivate them to change, as information people collect themselves is more believable than information presented to them by someone else.

•    Hayes (2014) says that a potential benefit of participation and involvement is that it can excite, motivate and help to create a shared perception of the need for change within a target group. When change is imposed the target group is likely to experience a lack of control and feel the ‘victim’ of change. The more people are involved, the more likely they are to feel that the change is something they are helping to create. In addition to increasing motivation, participation and involvement can also produce better decisions because of the wider input and can help tosustain the change once implemented because of a greater sense of ownership. However, involvement can be time-consuming and if those who are involved have less technical expertise than those leading the change it can result in a change plan that may not be as effective (Hayes, 2014).

•    Facilitation and support. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) say that when fear and anxiety lie at the heart of resistance, an effective approach to deal with them is to offer facilitation and support. They suggest that this might involve the provision of training in new skills, giving time off after a demanding period, or simply listening and providing emotional support. Nadler (1993) suggests that individuals need to have the time and opportunity to disengage from the current state, especially when they feel a sense of loss or letting go of something they value or feel is an important part of their individual or team identity. One way of doing this is to facilitate group/team sessions where members are given the opportunity to share their concerns about the change. However, Nadler (1993) cautions that such sessions might also have the effect of increasing rather than decreasing resistance, for example by becoming an opportunity just to raise grievances. Ceremonies and rituals to mark transitions can also help people to move on and let go of the past. When staff at an international bank had to move from a building in the middle of a city to a new building on the outskirts of the city, they burnt a paper model of the old building. Teams then held lunch events where they all talked about the move – what they would miss and what they would gain. Rituals can help people manage the sense of loss that is often associated with change.

•    The provision of emotional support can be particularly effective in circumstances where feelings undermine people’s ability to think clearly and objectively about a problem.

•    Negotiation and agreement. Kotter and Schelsinger (1979) say that negotiated agreements can be a relatively easy way to avoid resistance when it is clear that an individual, who has sufficient power to resist a change is going to lose out if the change is implemented. Incentives can be offered to employees to overcome resistance. Individuals can also be offered incentives to leave the organization through early retirement packages or redundancy packages in order to avoid having to experience the change. The issue with this approach is that others, who may have been content with the change and to support it, may then see the possibility of negotiating a better position for themselves. The long-term effect can be to increase the cost of implementing changes and increase the time required to negotiate the change with key stakeholders.

•    Manipulation and co-option. Manipulation is the covert attempt to influence others to change and it can involve the deliberate biasing of messages. It can also involve co-option. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) state that co-opting usually involves giving an individual or team leader a desirable role in the design or implementation of the change. The aim is to secure their endorsement of the change. While this approach may be quicker and cheaper than negotiation, it runs the risk of those who are co-opted feeling that they have been tricked into supporting the change. There is also the risk that those who are co-opted steer the change in a different direction than originally intended.

•    Explicit and implicit coercion. The ability to exercise power exists when one person or team is dependent on another for something they value. Coercive strategies involve managers using their power to force employees into accepting change by making clear that resisting the change can lead to actions such as losing jobs, being dismissed, or lack of promotion opportunities. While the result might be a willingness to comply with the change, an individual’s commitment to the change may be low. Coercive strategies may be appropriate in situations where there is a low perceived need for change, where the proposed change is not attractive to the target individuals or teams, or where speed is vital. However, this approach lacks ethical justification and can result in individuals feeling threatened about what will happen if they oppose the change.

•    Goal setting. Hayes (2014) adds to Kotter and Schlesinger’s list by including goal setting. Hayes argues that goal setting can affect resistance to change and increase motivation to support it. Seijts and Latham (2012) say that attractive goals can affect priorities, effort, persistence and the search for effective ways of working. For example:

    Most individuals have multiple demands on their time at work. Presenting them with compelling goals for change can help them set priorities.

    Goals that are perceived to be of benefit and are challenging will motivate individuals to continue to work to implement and sustain the change.

    When it is not clear what needs to be done, goals can help provide direction and clarity about what is expected.

Activity

1    What methods have you seen used in organizations to overcome opposition to change? Think specifically about a change instance and what was done, using:

a    Education and persuasion

b    Participation and involvement

c    Facilitation and support

d    Negotiation and agreement

e    Manipulation and co-optation

f    Explicit and implicit coercion

2    What were the consequences of using the different methods?

3    What worked and what did not work? Why?

4    What personal preferences do you have regarding these techniques?

5    Which ones do you have the knowledge skills to match?

A critical perspective on resistance to change

Much of the literature on change tends to see resistance to change as an irrational response from those who are managed. This assumption that resistance to organizational change is a problem that always requires management is open to challenge. Some scholars have questioned the value of this approach (Piderit, 2000) and others have begun to re-examine and reconceptualize resistance (Ford et al., 2008). One of the concerns when we label ‘resistance’ to change as a negative response is that it can be used to dismiss potentially valid employee concerns about proposed changes.

Employee resistance to change is often not a result of negative attitudes towards change but comes from a well-grounded understanding by employees of the implications of change that is different from the understanding that leaders and managers have. People will often resist change out of genuine self-interest, knowing that the change will have adverse effects on them and others in the organization. They may have well-informed grounds for considering them ill advised, and have other options which they think are better. Maurer (1996) points out that those who resist changeoften have something important to tell us. They may see other options that leaders and managers never dreamed of. They may understand problems about the minutiae of implementation that leaders never see from their lofty perch atop Mount Olympus.

Resistance is often seen as a form of conflict, yet when differences among people are surfaced, confronted and debated, improved decision-making results (Ford et al., 2008). In other words, the organizational change effort can progress, just not quite in the way that managers planned it or thought that it might proceed. So instead of seeing resistance as a form of conflict, we need to consider it as a way that differences among people are surfaced. The mantra of ‘resistance to change’ may therefore have taken us as far as we can go. Instead we should retire it in favour of employees’ ‘responses to change’ and think about responses rather than resistance (Piderit, 2000).

Discussion Questions

1    What is the history of concerns about change in your organization or an organization with which you are familiar?

2    How have the concerns been dealt with?

3    What could be done to improve how concerns about change are dealt with?

Discussion Questions

1    What happens to an organization if individuals do not change as part of a change initiative?

2    What encourages and discourages us to change as individuals?

3    What are the tangible and intangible manifestations of negative reactions to change in organizations?

4    Why is resistance to change usually thought of as something that has to be overcome?

5    What alternative term to ‘resistance’ could be used? Why?

Stages of reactions to change

How people respond to change has been compared to the phases described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1973) which people pass through when coping with personal loss, grief, trauma or serious illness. These phases are: shock, denial, anger, resignation, acceptance and commitment.

•    Shock. When a change is first announced, especially if it is without any warning, individuals can become immobilized and shut down to protect themselves. At this stage they may not be able to focus on their work.

•    Denial. In this phase individuals feel threatened by the anticipated change and may even deny its existence: ‘I will be Ok’; ‘This is not happening.’

•    Anger. Individuals may get angry and lash out at what has been done to them, even as they hold on to accustomed ways of doing things: ‘Why me?’; ‘It is not fair, how can this happen to me?’; ‘Who is to blame?’ They will attempt to keep a hold on the status quo while decrying the fact that changes are happening.

•    Resignation. This is the stage when individuals reach a state of desperation and cannot see a way to accept the change and move forward. They may decide to look for a job elsewhere in the organization or even to leave the organization because they do not see themselves staying with it: ‘I am so sad; why should I bother?’, ‘What is the point? I may as well go elsewhere.’

•    Acceptance. Most people eventually internalize the change, make any needed adaptations, and then move forward with the change. Even if it is a grudging acknowledgement, they will start to consider the change for the best. In some cases, people will actively advocate what they had previously opposed. Acceptance and adaptation mean relinquishing the old ways of working and behaving, as well as the pain, confusion and fear experienced in the earlier stages of change: ‘It’s going to be OK’, ‘I can handle the change’, ‘I can’t fight it, so I may as well prepare for it?

•    Commitment. At this stage individuals will be committed to the change and begin to demonstrate the new behaviours and ways of working.

The reactions to each of these phases and suggestions for managing them are outlined in Table 11.2.

These phases can play a part in understanding the impact of change on people. There does, however, need to be a word of caution about they are used, as the phases that Kubler-Ross refers to do not always follow the sequence prescribed. Some people may skip certain stages. And some people may simply get stuck, for instance, in denial or anger. In such cases, people may be unwilling or unable to move forward. Some people will pass through each of the phases quickly; others will go slowly and may even go back to phases they have already experienced. When managing change it is important to recognize where people are on this curve and to respond accordingly. People get stuck for a number of reasons:

•    Change is not a single event with neat and tidy beginnings and endings.

•    Individuals’ experiences of change may vary depending on their individual circumstances and experiences.

•    To complicate matters, change often comes from two or more directions at the same time, which may add to the fear and uncertainty experienced by some individuals. For example, a division of a large company can be going through a restructure in which many roles are made redundant. The same division might then be sold to another company, which could result in a new leadership team, new policies and procedures, and a further restructure.

Table 11.2  Responses to change

Models similar to the one from Kubler-Ross have been developed by Isabella (1990) and Bridges (1992). Isabella (1990) proposes that individuals go through the following stages in response to change:

1.   Anticipation – this involves uncertainty, rumours and conducting ‘sense-making’ probes of what might be about to happen.

2.   Confirmation – this involves being curious about what is happening and selecting a conventional explanation by an analogy in a way that standardizes the event (‘It is an X kind of situation’ or ‘It is like when X happened’) and personalizing the change.

3.   Culmination – this is reconstructing one’s viewpoint, testing it and learning the new reality, and searching for symbolic meanings in the new – from disorientation and confusion to understanding through to reconstruction.

4.   Aftermath – this is accepting the change after it is over, especially its positive and negative consequences, the new strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and the winners and losers created by the change.

Isabella’s model emphasizes that employees’ reactions to change are multi-dimensional and multi-staged. The phases outlined in the model do raise some concerns. First, there is a passivity to Isabella’s framework that is questionable. Individuals are not thought to get angry, alarmed or frustrated by changes. Indeed, the absence of hostility to the changes contrasts with other models, such as that of Kubler-Ross, which expressly includes an anger phase. Second, there is an assumed linear progression, from uncertainty and curiosity to reconciliation and acceptance. As mentioned with Kubler-Ross’s model, this assumed linearity might not always be the case. Some employees will pass through the phases quickly; others may need time; but some will be unable to let go and they will get stuck in anger and resentment.

In contrast, Bridges (1992) proposes that individual reactions to change begin with an ending and then go on to a new beginning via a neutral zone:

1.   Ending phase. This is a period of letting go of the current situation, characterized by disengagement and disenchantment with the organization or with one’s work. This can be painful and upsetting. Until this has happened it is difficult for individuals to engage in new roles or change their behaviour. In this first transitional phase individuals need to be aware of how they have interpreted the change and how much of their response includes emotions of fear and loss. In this phase managers need to be aware of:

    How individuals are responding to the proposed change

    How much of their response is emotional

2.   Neutral zone. This is when an individual completes the endings attached to the previous situation and starts tentatively to build energy and enthusiasm for change, characterized by disorientation, disintegration and discovery. This is still a period of confusion. The danger is that people may be so uncomfortable that they push prematurely for certainty and closure and ignore any possibility of a creative search for better alternatives. This is a phase that is necessary in order to summon the energy to embrace the new situation. The positive side of the neutral zone is the tremendous opportunities to create new ways of thinking and acting. In this phase managers need to consider:

    How individuals can be encouraged to use the change to think and act differently

    How individuals and teams can be helped to see opportunity amid the change

3.   New beginnings. This is a period in which individuals are able to align themselves with the new vision and the changes seem appealing. In this phase managers should recognize that individuals have accepted the change and are ready to move on. They should consider how they will continue to talk with their teams and the individuals within them about how they are feeling about the change and how they are adapting to it and what organizational support they need.

Bridges (1992) notes that many organizations are often in a hurry to force employees into the third phase before they have passed adequately through the prerequisite first and second phases. The term ‘prerequisite’ highlights the fact that the Bridges’ model, as with those of Kubler-Ross and Isabella, is sequential. It is assumed that each individual must go through each phase in order, dealing with the consequences of each phase fully before advancing to the next phase. In reality this strict ordering may not be evident. The content of each phase, and progress through it, is subject tothe employee’s will and capacity. It is fundamentally a matter of employees’ interpretation of the changes that determines how they react. Managers do need to be sensitive to where individuals are and what they are experiencing and not just expect them to move forward. Ultimately the employee needs to go through the process in his or her own time.

Using Bridges’ (1992) model provides a simple framework for the stages of transition that describe natural emotional responses to change. Managers need to recognize that there will often be a time lag between the announcement of a change and an emotional reaction to it. It is easy tomistake the apparent calm of the first shock and denial phases for acceptance of the change. Different individuals will progress through the different stages at different rates and in different ways because the change will affect them differently. Managers need to beware that they themselves will go through the phases at a different rate from their staff. Managers will tend to know about the change before others and therefore may reach an acceptance of the change long before other organization members.

None of the models we have discussed on its own gives a complete picture of how people react to change. Therefore we propose combining both the Kubler-Ross and Bridges models to show a more realistic transition that individuals go through (see Figure 11.2).

How does change affect the psychological contract?

The combined effects of changes and the necessity for organizations to implement changes often quickly can significantly redefine employment relationships and have an impact on an individual’s  psychological contract  with the organization in which they work. The psychological contract is defined by Rousseau (1990: 391) as ‘the individual’s beliefs about mutual obligations, in the context of the relationship between employer and employee’. According to this definition, a psychological contract consists of organizational obligations (to be fulfilled by the organization) and employee obligations (to be fulfilled by employees), based on promises made by the employer and employee, respectively. The contract tends to be based on trust and defines the perceptions of the terms of an individual’s relationship with their employer, and the organizational obligations tothem.

Figure 11.2  Transition individuals go through during change

The violation of the psychological contract increases during organizational transformations, since perceived organizational obligations tend to be fulfilled to a lesser extent, especially with regard to rewards, social atmosphere at work, career opportunities, job security, compensation and communication (Pate et al., 2000). Since much of the psychological contract is implicit rather than explicit, leaders and managers may be unaware when they implement organizational transformations of the impact the changes can potentially have on an individual’s psychological contract. Often managers and leaders fail to realize that individuals may have a view that is very different from their own of what constitutes their psychological contract. Changes that impact on the psychological contract of employees can therefore result in a breach of trust if they are not considered in advance.

Activity

Think about a change initiative you are aware of. What happened or what will likely happen to the psychological contracts of those involved in the change?

1    What was the existing psychological contract?

2    In what ways did the change disrupt the existing contract?

3    What steps could have been taken to reduce the negative responses?

4    How should a new psychological contract be developed with affected individuals?

If you were affected by the change, what steps could you have taken to manage your way through the development of a new contract?

Trust and change

Trust is an important condition for successful change. In an organizational context trust is defined as the degree of confidence that individuals have in the goodwill of their leaders, specifically the extent to which they believe that their managers and leaders are honest, sincere and unbiased in taking their positions into account (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002; Kiefer, 2005; Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998). Employees’ trust in leaders and managers, as well as in the organization, is an expression of confidence in their reliability and honesty in times of change and uncertainty (Zeffane and Connell, 2003). Such judgements about the reliability and honesty of management are shaped by everyday experiences at work. Organizational changeinitiatives can significantly erode trust both in the organization and in its management (Morgan and Zeffane, 2003).

Without trust, individuals are more likely to withdraw their involvement in the organization and the change project (Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998). Trust in times of change is based on two things: predictability and capability (Duck, 2001). In any organization, people want to know what toexpect; they want predictability. Predictability consists of intention and ground rules: what the general goals are and how decisions will be made. The more leaders clarify the organization’s intentions and ground rules, the more people will be able to predict and influence what happens to them, even in the middle of constant change.

The second part of the equation is capability. To trust an organization, both managers and their employees must define the capability that each is providing, and each side has to believe that the other is capable of playing the new role. To make this happen, managers and employees must identify needed capabilities and negotiate the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the process. To build trust in times of change, leaders and managers must demonstrate that they are capable of leading the change and that they will act with integrity, honesty and fairness (Mayer et al., 1995). The importance of building trust is emphasized in the following case study, written by Anthony Greenfield, concerning a major cost-reduction programme in a supermarket chain.

CASE STUDY

A major cost reduction programme at a supermarket chain

The situation

A large supermarket chain found itself losing market share. It was suffering from long-term underinvestment in infrastructure and innovation. A critical factor was its over-inflated cost base, estimated to be several hundreds of millions of dollars larger than that of similar competitors. Central to this cost base was the prices they paid for the goods, mainly food, which were sold in their stores.

The buying teams within the business had become too remote from their suppliers. They negotiated the price of finished goods delivered totheir warehouses without much insight into the underlying cost drivers. This meant that decisions they made about products, packaging, transportation and storage of goods often led to price inflation and growth in the cost base. Suppliers were reluctant to contradict such decisions, as they feared losing business. Buyers therefore got into the habit of dictating terms. Prices were often inflated surreptitiously. For instance, a supplier would use foreign exchange fluctuation as an excuse to increase prices or wait for a buyer to move jobs (which was a regular occurrence) and then take advantage of the new buyer’s lack of information and experience to hike up prices.

The solution

After some initial analysis indicated the scale of the opportunity to shrink the cost base, an external consulting team was invited by the Buying Director to get to work on reducing the price of goods. They recruited a number of buyers and other supermarket employees to work alongside them in a joint effort. The backbone of the approach they pursued was to break down end-to-end supply-chain costs into their component parts to identify where cost could be taken out. For instance, the cost of a box of tomatoes might be made up of the cost of growing and harvesting the tomato plants, the cost of washing and packing the tomatoes, the cost of the packaging and labels, the cost of transport and storage and, finally, the cost of taking the box from the storage area in a store and placing it on the shelf ready for the customer. It is likely that at least one of these cost components could be significantly reduced.

Difficulties encountered

The project began steadily taking cost out of several products, for instance by changing packaging specification or simply calling suppliers toaccount on inflated prices. Savings measured in millions of pounds were achieved in a matter of months, but this was far off from the hundreds of millions of dollars that had been targeted.

The project was an uphill battle. The biggest barriers were internal to the company and stemmed from uncertainty, mistrust and a feeling that change was being imposed from the outside. The cost-reduction team were seen as outsiders despite the fact that the most of the team members were supermarket employees. There was a feeling that they could not be trusted not to upset supplier relationships or that they would focus too much on cost and not enough on quality. There was also resentment that they had the time and money to focus on improvement while the buyers still had their day job to do and that the team would take all the credit and the buyers would be made look incompetent. As a result, the cost-saving team did not get the support it needed from within the business to deliver the required savings. People resisted passively by simply being slow to help or through a variety of delaying tactics, and a few were openly hostile.

The breakthrough

In its first year of operation, the cost-reduction team became able to work effectively with the buying departments and with suppliers, and cost savings continued to rise steadily, but despite their best efforts, the pace of delivery increased only slowly.

The breakthrough came when the Buying Directors took a decision to train all of their people in the techniques that the cost-reduction team had been employing. Over a period of a few months every buyer, merchandiser and new product developer went on a three-day training course in how to take cost out of the supply chain.

The results

Some buyers used what they learned on the training course to reduce the cost of the products that they were responsible for, but these individuals were in a small minority. Most were too busy with their day job to take the time to work through the cost-saving process. However, as the techniques were now familiar to them, they realized that they made sense.

Trust between the buyers and the cost-reduction team increased as people felt more in control of the changes that were required to shrink the cost base. As a result, senior managers allowed the cost-reduction team into their departments. Likewise, the buyers provided support for their work or at least granted them access to work on their products and with their suppliers. Active and passive resistance largely fell away.

As for cost savings, the pace of delivery started to accelerate rapidly as the floodgates opened. In the first year of the programme, savings were just under $40m. In year two, when the training took place, $120m was saved, and in year three $300m was saved (a total reduction in the annual cost base of $460m).

Lessons learnt

People are wary of change that is seen to be imposed by outsiders and will oppose the change either actively or passively (through non-cooperation). Putting the tools of change into the hands of the people who are affected by it builds trust and gives them a sense of control over it, making it their change rather than someone else’s. As a result, people actively support the change, or at least do not oppose it.

© 2015 Anthony Greenfield, Founder and Director of the 5 Forces of Change.

Activity

1    Consider the impact of a change on an organization you are familiar with and then analyse the impact of the change on the individuals affected. How would you describe the impact and its causes?

2    What were the perceived costs of change? Who perceived these? How accurate were the perceptions? How could they be influenced?

3    What were the perceived benefits of change? How accurate were these perception? What was the probability of achieving these benefits? How dissatisfied with the status quo were employees? Why? What were the costs of not changing?

Managing reactions to change

Participation

Involving people in the change process can help to generate positive attitudes and commitment to change. Starting with Coch and French’s (1948) classic study at the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation, studies of participation have focused on the degree to which employees are involved in planning and implementing change. Such participation creates a sense of both contribution to the change and control over it. As a rule, employees who participate more tend to report greater readiness and acceptance of change, recognize change as less stressful and show more overall support for the change (Holt et al., 2007). Involvement in the early stages of the change can also decrease individuals’ change-related stress (Holt et al., 2007), while participation during the change process has been linked with positive emotions, a greater understanding of the meaning of change and greater involvement in implementing behavioural changes (Bartunek et al., 2006). Participation in the change process is important for helping to reduce negative responses to change by reducing anxiety, creating a stronger sense of ownership and enabling individuals to actively contribute to the shaping of change.

Activity

Reflect on a change that you have experienced:

1    What evidence was there that those leading the change agreed with the participative approach?

2    In what ways, if any, were you able to participate?

3    How did that affect your attitude towards the change?

Commitment versus compliance

Whether change is achieved through commitment or compliance depends on the change that needs to be made. If a child was running towards a street with traffic you would not use a commitment approach and explain that the car will hurt them. You would pull them back and explain later. This is the same approach that is used in an organization for immediate compliance purposes. The opposite is also true. If you want a child to make a long-term, sustained change, such as eating more healthily, you would not just give them a raw carrot and expect them to eat it. You would make the child aware of the better options, help them understand what food is better for them, and reinforce what the benefits are for them in order tosustain the change. The same is true when we need to achieve sustained behavioural change in organizations. We need to gain commitment to the proposed change.

Organizational commitment plays an important role in employees’ acceptance of change (Yousef, 2000) and their reactions to it. Several studies have found that employees who are committed to their organization are willing to exert effort on its behalf and are more accepting of the need for change (Oreg et al., 2011). Begley and Czajka (1993) also found that organizational commitment can serve as a buffer, dampening the detrimental effects of change-related stress. Furthermore, individuals’ past experience of change can affect their level of commitment to the organization and their willingness to support further change (Hayes, 2014).

Commitment to change refers to the degree of an individual’s willingness and desire to support the change that results from a sense of needing toreciprocate positive treatment received from the organization or a sense of moral duty rooted in loyalty to the organization (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002). Employees with strong organizational commitment are more likely to develop positive attitudes towards organizational change and therefore be more willing to put more effort into a change (Iverson, 1996). Each individual determines through his or her perceptual filters whether change is a threat or a benefit. Each individual’s unique schema of what change is or what change represents adds to the formulation of attitudes and reactions to change (Woodman, 1995). Individuals who are committed to their organization accept its values, are willing to exert effort on its behalf and wish to remain in it. They tend to report higher levels of readiness to change and acceptance of the change (Madsen et al., 2005; Mowday et al., 1979; Shapiro and Kirkman, 1999).

In any change process, managers and leaders have to decide whether they will achieve change through commitment or compliance. Compliance is about no-choice change: the system requires and enforces compliance. It may be relevant and necessary at certain times, such as having to comply with new legislation or regulations. In contrast, commitment is about choice-change: how one engages with change is a free choice.

Leaders must select the most appropriate approach for the change in their organizations. The route chosen depends on (a) the kind of change and (b) the level of commitment required for the change to be successful. Both incur cost but at different stages. With compliance, heavy costs can occur later on, especially if old habits return and the change is not sustained. With commitment, costs occur early on through involving people, communications and stakeholder management.

Implications for leaders and managers: strategies for managing the impact of change

There are a number of practical implications that can be drawn from the issues raised in this chapter.

Recognize the impact of change on people

For leaders and managers, change is often appropriate and necessary. But until everyone understands the what, why, when, who, where and how of the change, there is potential for negative reactions to the change. Individuals will have their own perceptions about the change. For instance, individuals may perceive it as threatening their status or adding extra work to their already overloaded work schedule. Individuals may then appear to oppose the change and as a result be viewed in negative terms – as ‘resistors’. Leaders and managers need to recognize the impact of change on individuals and why they respond as they do. Leaders and managers need to see change from the ‘hilltops’ of others and be aware of where on the change curve individuals are.

Convince people that change is really necessary

The reality is that many people will react positively to change. People will embrace rather than resist change if the outcome is important to them and they have been convinced that they will be better off rather than worse off. People pay attention to the process and will want to know:

•    The need for the change – in advance

•    How the change is to be managed

•    The vision for where the organization is going with the change

•    The reasons for the change, clearly and fully explained

•    What training and development will be provided to implement or take part in the change

People need to be convinced that change is necessary and that there is a need to move from the status quo. Leaders need to be able to show that there is a better alternative. Leaders and managers also need to be seen to have a process to move people from where they are to where they need to be and to be able to show that the benefits outweigh the costs.

Role modelling

Leaders and managers need to role model the change in behaviour they expect of others. As the Russian thinker, novelist and philosopher Leo Tolstoy said, ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.’ When leaders and managers live by the principles they set out for change they gain credibility in relation to the change agenda.

Of particular importance to role modelling is the ability of leaders and managers to act as active participants in change processes and to have the courage to carry on with the change even when their role is under threat of redundancy. Leaders and managers will also need to think about where they are in the emotional stages of change so they can manage their own reactions to the change as well as those of other people. They may be further ahead than their staff, having accepted the change while their staff are still in denial about it.

Social support

Various forms of social support can assist employees in coping with change. Research that originated in the 1980s found that social support could help individuals to cope with and alleviate the negative effects of stress caused by change (Cohen and Wills, 1985). Social support is a positive or helpful interpersonal interaction with someone such as a manager, colleague, friend or relative, which House (1981) says involves one or more of the following:

•    Emotion – showing concern and listening

•    Information – providing information and advice

•    Instrumental – providing active help with issues, such as workload

•    Appraisal – providing information relevant to individual performance

Employees who perceive management as supportive and who feel respected are more receptive to suggested changes and more willing to cooperate with the change (Lawrence and Callan, 2011). In contrast, employees who perceive their work environment as generally unsupportive are more likely to have cynical reactions, suffer from negative emotions and ultimately reject the change (Kiefer, 2005). The more effective and supportive managers are in taking care of employees, the more employees will trust their decisions and accept change (van Dam et al., 2008).