Change management wouldn’t be so hard if it weren’t for…the people. Open issues or objections left unresolved today cost time down the road. Suppose work starts before these concerns are mitigated. Stakeholders might get frustrated or begin to hold back their participation. Work produced might have difficulty getting implemented. Buy-in realizes impact.
There are three angles to consider. Addressing stakeholder resistance, achieving consensus on how deliverables are revised, and ensuring bi-directional feedback is balanced and actionable.
Concerns come through a variety of resistance behaviors. Digital and data transformations are particularly challenging because the project goals hit every aspect of the organization: the customer experience, the workspace, operations and infrastructure, and products and services.
👇Here are two examples for detecting and mitigating resistance.
Peter Block kindly let me adapt his full list of resistance behaviors for Driving Data Projects from his seminal book, Flawless Consulting, which should be a desk reference for everyone in change management.
🎯SITUATION 1: GIVE ME MORE DETAIL
Stakeholders keep asking for more details and finer bits of data. There is an insatiable appetite for details; no matter how much information is provided—it is never enough.
🚩RED FLAG (observe YOUR internal reaction to the behaviors of others):—Your frustration increases with the number of questions; even though you can answer them, it is time to suspect that the questions stem from their resistance rather than a simple request for information.
☑️NAME IT (the behaviors in others): “I notice different versions of the same document are continually requested and you’d like to be involved in every meeting.”
💪TRY: questioning the question. Explore the potential resistance by being curious. “Is there an underlying concern you have not expressed? What will the information answer? How will this help progress? What is your true underlying concern? [What are you trying to control for?]
Then, you can truly help. It might not be about the data at all.
🎯SITUATION 2: PRESSING FOR SOLUTIONS
“I don’t want to hear about problems; I want to hear about solutions.” The desire for solutions can prevent the project lead from learning anything important about the nature of the problem. It also cultivates the dependency of the stakeholders on the project manager (to solve every problem).
🚩RED FLAG (observe YOUR internal reaction to the behaviors of others):—When you start to get bored or confused about what all the information means and how it connects, suspect resistance and not just a generous attempt to provide all the facts.
☑️NAME IT (the behaviors in others): “You are giving me more detail than I need.”
💪TRY: slowing them down and breaking down the problem. “Talk to me like a 6th grader. How would you simplify this issue?”
How have you dealt with resistance?