A reader of Management Challenges recently posed the following question:

My organization is going through numerous changes in order to remain competitive. We are encountering a significant amount of resistance to these changes from employees. What suggestions can you offer to help reduce this resistance?

The key to gaining acceptance of organizational change is employee involvement.
Managers often avoid this approach because they fear the conflict that could arise. On too many occasions I have heard managers say, "When you ask people for ideas you're opening a can of worms." It is far easier to mandate acceptance of change at the expense of dialog with employees. When we employ this philosophy we should not be surprised that resistance is formidable.

The following guidelines are often helpful when introducing organizational change.
Once the change has been defined, consider designing a communications plan with a time-line that extends well into the implementation of the initiative. This plan should contain the establishment of a change team representing all of the key stakeholders. Keep foremost in your mind, that launching change from the corner office, without employee involvement, is a prescription for disaster.

Once the plan is solidified, each department manager should play a facilitative role in communicating the change. It is important to get buy-in through a healthy exchange with the people who will be most affected. Another critical step involves change management training for managers and employees. People need to understand the predictable hurdles involved in implementing change. In addition, there are very few organizational changes that don't require some form of skills training. Resistance will be minimized when people are well trained and feel confident about their role in the change. Do not attempt these suggestions if you are not open to modifying the change based on employee feedback. Some people may argue that these recommendations are burdensome. In the words of a famous philosopher, "It's pay me now or pay me latter."

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