This document summarizes research from interviews with 16 change leaders on what drives resistance to change. It finds that 70% of change initiatives fail mainly due to resistance to change. Leaders cited issues like communication problems, a lack of understanding the personal impacts of change, and transformational leadership challenges as top reasons for resistance. The document suggests that resistance may be reduced by addressing these issues through improved relationship building, communication, and developing leaders' abilities to facilitate change.

1. What Drives
Resistance to Change?
A Leader’s Perspective
Sponsor: Assentire Ltd www.assentire.net © Assentire Limited 2012
Researcher: Rod Willis rod.willis@assentire.net

2. Is this research Important?
 70% of all change initiatives fail (HBR).http
://hbr.org/product/hbr-s-10-must-reads-on-change-management-with-feat/an/12599-PBK-ENG
 Resistance to Change is often cited as the number one reason
why a change program has not delivered to the level that was
anticipated.
 Organisations need to respond to turbulent market conditions.
Needing to achieve more with fewer resources is a common
theme we hear daily in the media, be this public, private or
non-profit sectors.

3. The Prime Research context
 Sixteen change leaders (past and present) via semi-structured
interviews created the prime data.
 Combined experiences spanning > 55 organisations.
 Operating within Oil and Gas, Professional and Financial
Services, Public sector, including two District Councils and a
Police Collaboration Programme.
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4. It’s not new after all!
Just some of the articles
 How to Deal with Resistance to Change
 (Lawrence, 1954)
 A person-centred approach to dealing with resistance to change
 (Coghlan, 1993)
 7 Transformations of Leadership
 (Rooke and Torbert, 2005)
 Beyond talk: creating autonomous motivation through self-determination theory
 (Stone et al., 2009)
 Reframing resistance to organizational change
 (Thomas and Hardy, 2011)
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5. The Problem of Change
“Change is occurring at an ever increasing pace in all phases of
man’s life. People fear change because it upsets their way of
doing things and threatens their security. This feeling is balanced
by a desire for new experiences and for the benefits that come as a
result of change” (BURNS, J. E. 1966. THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE. Industrial Management, 8, 1.)
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6. Resistance to Change
Symptoms by Theme
Top 5 by number of references
identified with “*”
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7. Resistance to Change Symptoms
by Leaders Perception
Top 5 by number of references
identified with “*”
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8. Is Resistance in the
Eye of the Beholder?
As I reflected on the 1/3rd of quotes not directly responding to Resistance to Change
I became curious, wondering if there was a link between
“Leadership Transformational Levels” and the success of change programs?
To answer this question is beyond the scope of this work, but to investigate a
little more, I made direct contact with David Rooke, who provided
the following paper “Organizational Transformation as a Function of CEOs’
Developmental Stage1” (Rooke and Torbert, 1998), as well as the following
statement:
“You are definitely onto something that I think is really significant. I have
Attached an article written by Bill Torbert and myself some years ago that does
indeed point to the link between the action logic of the senior leader and the
degree of change and the shorter version of this that appeared in Systems Thinker.
The sample size is of course too small for any substantial claims to be made”.
(email Rooke April 2012)
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9. Implications for Change Programs
Top 5 by number of references
identified with “*”
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10. Change Programs under-performing
Could this be why?
Top 5 by number of references
identified with “*”
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11. Resistance to Change Symptoms and
the “Grow Through Change”
Framework
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12. Thoughts for the day
Resistance to Change, has our view actually changed since
1954?
“New research finds 'reality gap’ in the capability of UK
plc's 8 million managers, undermining attempts to boost
economic growth” (CIPD 3rd of May 2012)
“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but
expecting different results” (Albert Einstein)
Thank you for your time
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13. It’s not new after all!
Books for consideration
Leading and Managing Change
1: Purpose (Heron, 1999, Pink, 2011, Jung, 1995, Sinek, 2011)
3: Communication (Patterson, 2002, Wright, 2009, Gallwey, 1986)
4: Change Dynamic (Black, 2008, Conner, 2006, Hurst, 2002, *Kim and Mauborgne, 2003)
Ensure a safe environment to enable learning and change
2: Relationship Health (Covey, 2006, Kotter and Cohen, 2002, *Welsh NHS Confederation, 2008, Schutz, 1994)
Leading and Managing Individual and Group Transition
6: Group Dynamic (Jaques and Salmon, 2008, Senge, 1994, Senge, 2006, Thornton, 2010)
5: Personal Dynamic (Argyris, 2008, Cartwright, 2004, Deci, 1997, Hawkins and Smith, 2006, Lawrence and Nohria, 2002)
Transformational Leadership
Frameworks (*Rooke and Torbert, 2005, *Jr., 2006, Collins, 2005, Barrett, 2011, *Michael J. Zickar, 2008)
A link for the books available from Amazon is available at http://www.assentire.net/Resources.aspx
References prefixed with an * are Papers, please contact me for more details if you would like the full reference.
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14. References for Journals introduced
at the start of the presentation
COGHLAN, D. 1993. A person-centred approach to dealing with resistance to change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 14, 10.
LAWRENCE, P. R. 1954. How to Deal with Resistance to Change. Harvard Business Review, 32, 49-57.
ROOKE, D. & TORBERT, W. R. 2005. 7 Transformations of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 83, 66-66.
STONE, D. N., DECI, E. L. & RYAN, R. M. 2009. Beyond talk: creating autonomous motivation through self-determination theory. Journal of
General Management, 34, 75-91.
THOMAS, R. & HARDY, C. 2011. Reframing resistance to organizational change. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 27, 322-331.
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