Five Ways Leaders Provoke Resistance and Undermine Change

Incentive: Strategy

Five Ways Leaders Provoke Resistance and Undermine Change
January 26, 2010

By Ron McMillan

While many leaders know exactly what their pressing problems are, most still fail to affect them in any way. For example, health care executives know that 195,000 people die every year in hospitals because of avoidable mistakes. That is the equivalent of a jumbo jet filled with passengers crashing every single day. Yet, in spite of well-documented root causes, the same mistakes persist. Attempted solutions have taken the form of process improvements, improved protocols, and even major IT investments. But little or no change has been produced.

Our research at VitalSmarts shows most that chronic organizational performance problems persist because leaders provoke resistance to their own goals in five small but predictable ways. While they focus almost exclusively on macro issues such as systems and protocols (often doing these well), they fail to heed their own micro behaviors. More specifically, they devote little to improving their response to the moments when their employees resist new protocols, systems, or cultural guidelines. Little do they know that how they respond to natural human resistance to change can mean the difference between long-term success and failure.

We surveyed 25,000 participants and identified leaders who were most effective at influencing rapid and positive change. We then watched these leaders in action and compared them to those who got mired down in resistance and failed to meet change goals. These two groups did not differ significantly in the quality of their macro plans, but they differed markedly in their ability to handle micro problems. How they behaved when encountering incompetence, foot-dragging, mistakes, or outright failure led to the difference in their ability to execute change. Specifically, the ordinary leaders made the following five mistakes that provoked resistance and undermined change.

1. “Acting out” rather than “talking out.” Our research shows 84 percent of health care professionals work regularly with people whom they see as incompetent or break rules that put patients at risk. Yet, only 1 in 15 speaks up. The rest “act out” rather than “talk out” their concerns; rather than speak directly to a colleague about a problem, they badmouth, sideline, or ignore altogether.

This indirect approach creates defensiveness and resentment among those who need to change and baffles them about the real issue. The result is two-fold. First, cut off from meaningful feedback, the offending parties continue to behave badly. Second, both morale and efficiency drop as people waste energy on conflict. And this isn’t merely a health care issue. Chronic organizational problems persist in other industries, as leaders fail to see their own roles in undermining change efforts.

2. Holding the wrong conversation. When people finally speak up, they routinely talk about the wrong topic. They talk about single instances when they are concerned about patterns. Or, fearful that the person might be offended, they talk only about a minor issue. For example, they describe specific a problematic behavior when their real concern is deep incompetence. They then find themselves having the same conversation over and over again and eventually give up or work around the problematic person, team, or function. Whenever leaders have the exact same conversation twice, they are having the wrong conversation. Choosing to talk about the right things is a key to eliminating resistance and influencing change.

3. Diving into content. In those rare instances when people confront the right problem, they do so poorly. They dive into the issue without creating a sense of safeness for the person being corrected. This causes the person to misperceive intentions, become defensive, and deny the problem. Leaders then assume that the issue is undiscussable—and swear never to bring it up again.

The problem is not that the issue is undiscussable; it’s that unskilled problem-solvers provoke resistance by diving into the issue without making it safe for the other person. Fueled by a sense of urgency, unskilled leaders make accusations, share their worst conclusions, or even make threats, rather than carefully and logically describing the problem. It’s little wonder that the person becomes defensive. Leaders who effectively drive change are skilled at creating psychological safety for those they need to engage. First, they make it safe, then they dive into the problem.

4. Engaging in monologue rather than dialogue. Unsuccessful change agents approach the crucial conversation as though their job is to set people straight. They engage in monologue rather than dialogue. They advocate strongly while providing no opportunity for others to share their views. They rarely listen or open themselves up to legitimate ideas that others have, because they’re convinced that they have it right and that it is their job to fix others. When others believe you are not open to their influence, they respond in kind. On the other hand, when others believe you are genuinely open to their views, they open up themselves to yours.

5. Leading with power rather than information. Finally, leaders who know how to turn conversations into tools for lasting change know how to use their power. Instead of using their authority to demand change or even make subtle threats, they rely on a more effective means of influence. They rely on the power of information.

Top change agents go to great pains to discourage deference to authority. They realize that when people do things because they think it’s what the boss wants, and not because it’s right, they’re doomed. Sensitive to the dangers of their own power, savvy leaders lay down the tools of coercion and pick up the tools of instruction. When they’re effective at orchestrating change, they rely on information, not fear. By carefully explaining the consequences of an existing behaviors, they’re gifted at making the invisible visible.

Why do ineffective leaders make these five common mistakes? Because, despite the fact that companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on leadership training, few leaders learn how to actually talk about their pressing problems in a way that doesn’t provoke resistance. They learn how to think about their core issues and get excited about the need for change, but rarely do they develop the interpersonal influence skills that keep their change efforts on track.

In our research, we found leaders who are gifted at influencing change. We used opinion-leader surveys to identify the 5 to 8 percent of a population who are named by their peers as the most credible and influential employees—people who influence rapid and positive change better than their peers. We then spent 10,000 hours watching these leaders at all levels and observing how they avoid provoking resistance and successfully engage others in change efforts.

Instead of making the five common mistakes, powerful leaders did the following:

• They talk out crucial conversations, rather than act out.
• They hold the right conversation.
• They start the conversation by making it safe for the other person.
• They encourage disagreement.
• They rely on the power of persuasion, not threats.

So here is the question: Does improving interpersonal leadership skills, such as knowing how to encourage disagreement or avoiding the abuse of power, affect how people respond to change?

The answer is yes. And the changes do not take long to occur. In fact, our experience in studying more than 50 large-scale change efforts is that if significant and measurable change takes longer than one year to produce, you’re doing things wrong. If you integrate macro strategies with micro skills, change is both inevitable and rapid. Teach leaders how to replace the five common mistakes with the best practices of change masters, and massive change efforts stand their best chance for success.

Ron McMillan is co-author of three New York Times bestsellers, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant and co-founder of VitalSmarts, www.vitalsmarts.com, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance.

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