Understanding why people are reluctant to try new ideas

For those who are wired to innovate and bring change the resistance they encounter from others can be frustrating. This is especially true when change is critical to the organization or when doing things differently would save a great deal of time, money and frustration. We ask ourselves in these instances, "Why don't they get it?" It is a good question and it has three good answers. 

First, there is the change scale. When it comes to one's openness to change people fit into one of five categories: Innovators who drive change and are always looking for new and better ways; Early Adaptors who embrace change quickly once it is presented; Middle Adaptors who need to think about the change before adopting it; Late Adaptors who are late to embrace any change and Laggards who resist any change. 

Of these categories which represent how people are naturally wired, only innovators and early adaptors quickly embrace change. the other three categories are essentially change resistant at different levels. Thus any strategy to drive change must speak to middle and late adaptors. One need not worry about innovators and early adaptors. As for laggards, don't bother to try to convince them - they are inconvincible when it comes to change.

Resistance to change has nothing to do with an individuals character or intellect. These categories represent how they are naturally wired. The key to helping middle and late adaptors get to a yes on change is to appeal to a higher value than their resistance to change. If they deeply believe in the mission of the organization, for instance, one can appeal to the ability to better accomplish that mission if we adopt the proposed changes. 

A second reason that people resist change is their own comfort. People simply get comfortable doing things in certain ways and changing those ways can be uncomfortable. It is far easier not to rock the boat and to leave things as they are. After all it has worked in the past so it will work in the future. Except of course, the future is different than the past and those who don't understand this are destined to lose their effectiveness. 

Resisting change for one's own comfort is not a noble cause and those with this tendency should not be in organizational leadership. Leaders realize that their loyalty is to the mission of the organization, not their comfort. 

There is a third reason for resistance to change which change agents need to understand. There are people who resist change because they cannot envision what it looks like. These are people who understand new paradigms when they see it but cannot envision those paradigms without first seeing it. 

In these cases simply be aware of the fact that the change resistance is not a poor attitude but that these individuals need to see the new way in action and are likely to support the change once they understand it.

Part of the job of change agents is to understand how their audience is likely to respond to the change and to tailor their communication in ways that will allow the most people to get to a place of support. They need to be change agents in communicating their proposed changes - and flexible in their approach.

The cost of elephants and the cost of transparency

Elephants are those issues that a team or organization knows is present but no one feels that they can talk about. That fear comes from knowing that the leader is not willing to put those issues on the table and you will be met with resistance, pushback or retribution. The number of elephants in any organization is a direct indicator of its health. The greater the number of elephants, the more unhealthy the organization. A low number of elephants indicates a healthier organization. 

Here is what we forget. There is a high cost to elephants. Elephants represent issues that ought to be addressed because they are negatively impacting the organization or team. Choosing to leave elephants alone means that these issues cannot be solved. And the ironic thing is that everyone is aware that the elephant exists even as they try to pretend that it is not present which of course they know it is. Elephants breed cynicism and mistrust when unaddressed.

There is an alternative to letting the elephants be but it also comes with a cost. The alternative is transparency, what I call in my writings Robust Dialogue. Its definition is that any issue can be put on the table with the exception of a personal attack or hidden agenda. 

The cost? The cost is that Robust Dialogue means that there will be uncomfortable conversations from time to time. Yet without uncomfortable conversations there is no significant progress, there are no paradigm shifts and there are no game changers. Elephants keep progress from occurring while Robust Dialogue forces the conversation and drives change in the process. So the cost of elephants is stagnation while the cost of Robust Dialogue is hard conversations and progress. 

Both elephants and transparency have a cost attached. And a result. The question is which result do we want? If you are a leader at any level, which culture are you creating? If it is a culture of not rocking the boat you will allow elephants to exist and guard the status quo. It is a comfortable place for you to be. If it is a culture of transparency you will drive progress at the cost of hard conversations. It may be uncomfortable but it will be far more successful. 

You may think there are no elephants on your team or in your organization. There is one good way to find out. Ask your staff what elephants exist that need to be named? They will tell you and once an elephant is named it is no longer an elephant but simply an issue to be discussed.