Yesterday we covered The
Good reasons someone might be opposed to change. Today we’ll continue on to the more commonly
encountered reasons for resistance: Loss, Gain, and Insecurity.

Loss:
Losing something you want to keep. 

Change can result in a
loss of power, influence, staff, tradition, or even your job. The loss might be real or it might be
perceived. In either case, this is a
strong motivator for people to keep things the way they are.

Gain:
Gaining something you’d like to lose.  

Sometimes change results
in additional workload, merging people into your company from another
organization, or increased attention (when you prefer to stay “under the radar”). Any of these situations can cause people to
buck the system and try to keep things the way they like them.

Insecurity: Fearing what you can’t control. 

Needing to learn a new
skill, assume a new role, or work for a new manager can make people feel very vulnerable. While this feeling may relate back to the
fear of losing their job or their status as an expert, anxiety is at its
core. These people are scared to leave
their comfort zone.

These motivations will manifest
themselves in different behaviors. Passive-aggressive
behavior is only one of them. You
may encounter aggressive behavior, delayed decision-making, attempts to undermine
the change initiator, among others.  

Then there are cultural
issues, like the organization’s morale level prior to the change, which
will come into play.  Also, embedded processes, perhaps for evaluating
benefits or getting project approval, can make it difficult to implement
change.

With a more solid
understanding of why people resist change, I think we’re now ready to cover how
they resist it and what you can do about it.

Technorati tags: Business, Change Resistors, Change Management