Does it sometimes feel like your best employees, the smart, capable people you depend on, are the ones who raise the biggest objections and create the greatest barriers to change?
It’s easy to label this behaviour as resistance. But what if they’re not resisting anything?
What if they’re doing exactly what their brains are designed to do, and you’ve been interpreting it the wrong way?
Understanding why people push back on change can help you eliminate resistance and leverage one of your most powerful tools for enabling change.
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The Myth of Resistance to Change
Here’s the reality: those challenging questions people ask, statements that something didn’t work before, and similar forms of pushback are early indicators of their readiness for change.
However, because most leaders believe people resist change, it’s easy to misinterpret these questions as resistance.
Three things are happening when you announce a change.
- Your employees view the change from their perspective. As a result, they can see things you may not.
- They have a history of change in your organization and draw on that history when responding to your announcement.
- Everyone reacts when we encounter something different. The brain is wired to look for what is wrong and assess any potential threat first.
Those early questions and challenges are therefore an important early warning system. Ignore or dismiss them as resistance, and you’re in trouble.
I worked with one leader who stopped to listen to employees’ “complaints” and discovered a critical component of the new process was missing. If it weren’t addressed, it would create chaos in another department that depended on the current process.
Your Brain Is a Prediction Machine
We are hardwired for survival. That means our brains are constantly on the lookout for anything that could be a potential threat.
The brain works like a prediction machine, drawing from our experiences to anticipate and create models of what to expect and how to respond.
When you announce a change without understanding this normal human response, you can easily trigger a threat response. Then, if you work from the belief that people resist change, you can interpret a person’s reaction to that potential threat as resistance.
It’s not. It’s simply the brain doing its job.
The Readiness Mindset: See Questions as Feedback
The Readiness Mindset® flips the switch on resistance.
Leaders who communicate using the Readiness Mindset interpret questions and challenges as feedback about their employees’ level of readiness.
Instead of leaders responding with “They are being difficult” or “They are resistant,” they explore the response with curiosity.
They ask:
“What is their response telling me about their readiness?”
Then they align their response with the employees’ readiness level.
As a result, people become engaged with the change. You can start building readiness for the change instead of letting questions and challenges become barriers you must overcome.
Turn Objections Into an Implementation Checklist
A simple reframe can change how you respond to pushback.
When someone pushes back, instead of thinking:
“How do I overcome this resistance?”
Ask:
“What do they need to feel ready?”
Their objections become your implementation checklist. Their questions become your pathway to buy-in and commitment.
Shift From Managing Resistance to Building Readiness
The Readiness Mindset® shifts you from managing resistance to building readiness.
If you’re ready to stop fighting your employees and start harnessing their energy for sustainable change, book a Change Strategy Call with me today.
