Case Study - Overcoming Resistance
Overcoming Resistance – how to encourage your people to actively support what you’re trying to do
I was contracting at a company’s premises when I overheard a casual comment that could have been mistaken for just one individual complaining. The person speaking mentioned an apparently pointless, repetitive piece of work being done by a team as part of the service they provided to other teams and external customers.
The comment stuck in my mind, and when I investigated further, I discovered that the work under discussion was far more widespread than anyone had realised, and that in reality it was neither wanted nor highly valued. When I probed further, I established the work was a relic of previous processes that had continued without anyone assessing whether it was still required.
After quickly quantifying exactly how much time completing this work was costing the team (the equivalent of 20 full-time employees), the senior management discussed it with their key customers and they jointly decided to stop providing the unwanted service.
The savings were huge: it freed up 20 full-time employees and as a result the team as a whole became more efficient. Further, the team no longer had to recruit extra staff to complete this nugatory work. Staff morale improved because they were no longer occupied on work that everyone recognised as pointless and without value.
All of these benefits were predictable. However, there was a further benefit that came as something of a surprise.
The original comment came out during part of a business performance improvement initiative in which staff were asked, “What’s stopping you from doing what you need to do?”
Until that point team leaders and staff had been very guarded about what they said, driven by a fear of being identified as trouble-makers or worse. Also, they’d previously experienced similar initiatives – all of which had either been seen as ‘a lot of hot air, but nothing happened’, or had resulted in those being brave enough to speak up subsequently being penalised.
This time, no one was penalised or branded a trouble-maker, and staff witnessed real, tangible changes to their working practices. This caused a sea-change amongst the staff’s attitude to suggesting improvements, as they could see that when something was reported as wrong it actually got sorted out. In time, this early little victory turned out to be a key success as word of mouth from the original team encouraged people in other teams to come forward with their concerns and suggestions. Most importantly, rather than simply complaining about what was wrong, they started proposing ways to improve.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took a great deal of effort and focus to encourage and reinforce this change of attitude (amongst both staff and the management team), and there was the occasional setback.
However, over the next 3 months, the staff put forward over 100 suggestions for ways to change the way the organisation worked and behaved. The majority of these suggestions were positive and of real benefit to individuals, teams and the organisation.
The previous ‘but we don’t like changing what we do’ resistance was significantly less than before because teams and individuals knew why changes were being proposed and who they would help – including themselves. After a while the new attitude to change started to become ‘business as usual’, helped along by an enlightened decision by senior managers to provide a suggestions incentive scheme.
This all came about because one throwaway comment was picked up as relevant, immediately acted upon, and most importantly, was seen to have been acted on positively.
I was contracting at a company’s premises when I overheard a casual comment that could have been mistaken for just one individual complaining. The person speaking mentioned an apparently pointless, repetitive piece of work being done by a team as part of the service they provided to other teams and external customers.
The comment stuck in my mind, and when I investigated further, I discovered that the work under discussion was far more widespread than anyone had realised, and that in reality it was neither wanted nor highly valued. When I probed further, I established the work was a relic of previous processes that had continued without anyone assessing whether it was still required.
After quickly quantifying exactly how much time completing this work was costing the team (the equivalent of 20 full-time employees), the senior management discussed it with their key customers and they jointly decided to stop providing the unwanted service.
The savings were huge: it freed up 20 full-time employees and as a result the team as a whole became more efficient. Further, the team no longer had to recruit extra staff to complete this nugatory work. Staff morale improved because they were no longer occupied on work that everyone recognised as pointless and without value.
All of these benefits were predictable. However, there was a further benefit that came as something of a surprise.
The original comment came out during part of a business performance improvement initiative in which staff were asked, “What’s stopping you from doing what you need to do?”
Until that point team leaders and staff had been very guarded about what they said, driven by a fear of being identified as trouble-makers or worse. Also, they’d previously experienced similar initiatives – all of which had either been seen as ‘a lot of hot air, but nothing happened’, or had resulted in those being brave enough to speak up subsequently being penalised.
This time, no one was penalised or branded a trouble-maker, and staff witnessed real, tangible changes to their working practices. This caused a sea-change amongst the staff’s attitude to suggesting improvements, as they could see that when something was reported as wrong it actually got sorted out. In time, this early little victory turned out to be a key success as word of mouth from the original team encouraged people in other teams to come forward with their concerns and suggestions. Most importantly, rather than simply complaining about what was wrong, they started proposing ways to improve.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took a great deal of effort and focus to encourage and reinforce this change of attitude (amongst both staff and the management team), and there was the occasional setback.
However, over the next 3 months, the staff put forward over 100 suggestions for ways to change the way the organisation worked and behaved. The majority of these suggestions were positive and of real benefit to individuals, teams and the organisation.
The previous ‘but we don’t like changing what we do’ resistance was significantly less than before because teams and individuals knew why changes were being proposed and who they would help – including themselves. After a while the new attitude to change started to become ‘business as usual’, helped along by an enlightened decision by senior managers to provide a suggestions incentive scheme.
This all came about because one throwaway comment was picked up as relevant, immediately acted upon, and most importantly, was seen to have been acted on positively.