• (1) Loss of status or job security in the organization.

• It is not our nature to make changes that we view as harmful to our current situation. In an
organizational setting, this means employees, peers, and managers will resist administrative
and technological changes that result in their role being eliminated or reduced. From their
perspective, your change is harmful to their place in the organization! Forcing the change
has its place. This approach alone is ineffective however. Managers who overuse this
approach will harm their effectiveness over the long term. Without a thoughtful change
strategy to address this area, leaders will trigger strong resistance and organizational
turnover.
• (2) Non-reinforcing reward systems.
• There is a common business saying that managers get what they reward. Organizational
stakeholders will resist change when they do not see any rewards. When working with
managers, I will ask them, Where is the reward to employees for implementing your
change? Without a reward, there is no motivation to support the change over the long term.
This often means that organizational reward systems must be altered to support the change
that management wants to implement. The change does not have to always be major or
costly.
• (3) Surprise and fear of the unknown.
• The less the organization knows about the change and its impact on them, the more fearful
they become. Leading change also requires not springing surprises on the organization! The
organization needs to be prepared for the change. In the absence of continuing two-way
communication with leadership, grapevine rumors fill the void and sabotage the change
effort.
• (4) Peer pressure.
• Whether we are introverted or extroverted, we are still social
creatures. Organizational stakeholders will resist change to
protect the interests of a group. This could be employees
resisting change to protect their co-workers. Managers will resist
change to protect their work group.
• (5) Climate of mistrust.
• Meaningful organizational change does not occur in a climate of
mistrust. Trust, involves faith in the intentions and behavior of
others. Mutual mistrust will doom an otherwise well-conceived
change initiative to failure.
• (6) Organizational politics.
• Some resist change as a political strategy to “prove” that the
decision is wrong. They may also resist to show that the person
leading the change is not up to the task. They are committed to
seeing the change effort fail.
• (7) Fear of failure.
• Sweeping changes on the job can cause employees to
doubt their capabilities to perform their duties. What is
known is comfortable! Employees resist these changes
because they are worried that they cannot adapt to new
work requirements.
• (8) Lack of tact or poor timing.
• Sometimes it is not what a leader does, but it is how
s/he does it that creates resistance to change! Undue
resistance can occur because changes are introduced in
an insensitive manner or at an awkward time. For any
significant organizational change effort to be effective,
organizational leadership must prepare a comprehensive
change strategy to address these barriers.
Top 12 typical reasons for resistance to change
• Misunderstanding about the need for change/when the reason for the change is unclear — If staff do not understand the
need for change you can expect resistance. Especially from those who strongly believe the current way of doing things works
well…and has done for twenty years!
• Fear of the unknown — One of the most common reasons for resistance is fear of the unknown. People will only take active
steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe – and perhaps more importantly, feel – that the risks of standing still are
greater than those of moving forward in a new direction
• Lack of competence — This is a fear people will seldom admit. But sometimes, change in organizations necessitates changes
in skills, and some people will feel that they won’t be able to make the transition very well
• Connected to the old way — If you ask people in an organization to do things in a new way, as rational as that new way may
seem to you, you will be setting yourself up against all that hard wiring, all those emotional connections to those who taught
your audience the old way – and that’s not trivial
• Low trust — When people don’t believe that they, or the company, can competently manage the change there is likely to be
resistance
• Temporary fad — When people belief that the change initiative is a temporary fad
• Not being consulted — If people are allowed to be part of the change there is less resistance. People like to know what’s
going on, especially if their jobs may be affected. Informed employees tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction than
uninformed employees
• Poor communication — It’s self evident isn’t it? When it comes to change management there’s no such thing as too much
communication
• Changes to routines — When we talk about comfort zones we’re really referring to routines. We love them. They make us
secure. So there’s bound to be resistance whenever change requires us to do things differently
• Exhaustion/Saturation — Don’t mistake compliance for acceptance. People who are overwhelmed by continuous change
resign themselves to it and go along with the flow. You have them in body, but you do not have their hearts. Motivation is
low
• Change in the status quo — Resistance can also stem from perceptions of the change that people hold. For example, people
who feel they’ll be worse off at the end of the change are unlikely to give it their full support. Similarly, if people believe the
change favours another group/department/person there may be (unspoken) anger and resentment
• Benefits and rewards — When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble
involved
 Dimensions of Change
•It refers to the Scope of change
•The purpose and origination of change
• The Drawing force behind any change effort.
•There are four dimensions of change: Leader
Driven, Process Driven, Improvement Driven and
Organizational Renewal.
Leader Driven
Leader Driven change may be Seen Where:
• An organization gets new leader who brings with
them new ideas and approaches to the business
• The leader of the organization realized that
change is crucial and pushes it through the
organization
• In these cases it is crucial that leader “walk the
talk” in relation to the change
Process Driven
The change in this instance is focused primarily on
the processes where:
• Innovation is required to upgrade the process
• Efficiency requirements are increased
• Customer requirement means that current
processes are no longer capable
• Best practice has emerged and needs to be
introduced to the process
Improvement Driven
The emphasis in this type of change is to improve
the areas with in the organization such as:
• Development of the new skill in the workforce
through cross training
• Implementation of findings from benchmarking
activity
• Implementation of best practice
• Implementation of findings from contentious
improvement activities.
Organizational Renewal
This type of change is more radical in that it looks at the
whole organization in terms of:
• Maximizing benefits from synergistic activity
• Business Process reengineering
• Adjustment of business activity due to market forces
These initiatives attempt to reinvent an organization by
changing its strategic intent, core purpose, or mission.
Examples include shifting from selling individual
products to selling complete solutions that add value
for the customer or expanding from local to global
markets.