Resistance Is Information
When a team resists a change, most leaders see a problem. They try to overcome the resistance. Push harder. Communicate more. Add incentives.
This misses the point entirely.
Resistance is information. It tells you something important about the gap between where people are and where you are asking them to go. The best leaders do not overcome resistance. They read it.
What Resistance Actually Tells You
Resistance shows up in different flavors, and each flavor carries a different message.
"We do not understand." The change has not been translated into language that connects to daily work. This is a cascade problem, not a resistance problem.
"We do not trust." Previous changes broke promises. People are protecting themselves from another disappointment. This is a credibility problem.
"We do not see ourselves in this." The change vision does not include a role for the people being asked to change. This is an identity problem.
"We cannot." People lack the skills, tools, or resources to do what the change requires. This is a capability problem.
Each of these requires a different leadership response. Lumping them all into "resistance" and pushing harder makes every version worse.
What Shackleton Knew About Resistance
In the Lead the Endurance simulation, Senior Advisors face resistance from their own team members. The expedition crew is cold, scared, and losing faith. The same dynamics play out in every organizational change.
Shackleton did not overcome his crew's resistance through force. He read it. When men were afraid, he addressed the fear directly. When they lost purpose, he reconnected them to the mission. When they doubted the plan, he involved them in creating a new one.
At Freedom Mobile, leaders faced massive resistance to a new approach to customer retention. Save rates sat at 47%. After going through a Learn2 experience and learning to read resistance instead of fight it, the leadership team shifted their approach. Save rates rose to 86%, saving $4 million per year.
The Resistance Dashboard
Think of resistance like a dashboard with four gauges: Understanding, Trust, Identity, and Capability. When resistance appears, check each gauge.
Low Understanding: cascade the strategy using the POW Framework. Translate it into team-specific language.
Low Trust: acknowledge the past. Be honest about what is different this time.
Low Identity: use the Big Picture Model to show people their role in the future state.
Low Capability: invest in practice, not presentations.
Leading Through Resistance
The leaders who navigate change successfully share one trait. They treat resistance as a sign that they need to lead differently, not that their people need to follow better.
Read about the baggage your leaders carry into every meeting for more on the emotional dimension of change resistance. And see leading when the plan fails for what happens after resistance gives way to disruption.
The leader development path includes specific practice on reading and responding to resistance during the Shackleton simulation.
[Book a discovery call](https://bookme.name/DougBolger/free-discovery) to explore how your leaders could get better at reading resistance.