Why We Need to Study Resistance to Change
George B. Graen
Contemporary theory about what CEOs of public corporations strive to accomplish focuses on finding positions at the top of a valuable hill, defending against all threats by friends or foes. This “king of the hill” metaphor was acceptable until the knowledge-era tsunami washed away all the hills and revealed the underlying mountain. The new metaphor meant many new and old competitors were climbing together on the same rock face. Some may find a niche in which to hide for a short time, but most CEOs must keep trying new ways to achieve their dynamic competitive positions.
This competitive rock climbing metaphor has been more appropriate to small private businesses than to large public corporations. Unfortunately for CEOs of public corporations, they must now act more like the much quicker and flexible small business CEOs. This change in the metaphor implies that public corporations also must become quick and flexible relative to both their present and future competitors.
CEOs of public corporations need our help to understand better the phenomenon that I-O psychology years ago named “resistance to change.” (An Internet search reveals over 22 million references.) We are the experts in research-based knowledge regarding the conditions that need to be met before psychological resistance to change can be overcome and transformed into support and guidance of change. We need to propose to CEOs employing proper channels how we can facilitate their game-changing strategies.
Deborah Gibbons (2009) presented a recipe for constructing a meaningful representation of emerging networks of (a) Graen’s (in press) excellent partnerships, (b) Krackhardt & Hanson’s (1993) advice, (c) Sparrowe & Liden’s (2005) influence, and (d) Fairhurst and Sarr’s (1996) information, to name a few. She points out that for routine muscle work, engineering process organizational designs assumed that most human personalities could safely be left at the front gate and picked up after work. New designs need to adapt to the oncoming knowledge tsunamis that require more of human capability be engaged. Although command and control are not feasible for use with much of this newly required emergent change behavior, common fate can influence people to join emergent networks, especially those with excellent relations between network leaders and their members.
Here is where I-O psychologists can make a huge difference. A large body of research informs us how to develop such all-star emergent networks. Unfortunately, most of this technology is unknown even to executives who are charged with making their organization more adaptable. A DIY manual for CEOs puts this within easy reach (Graen & Graen, 2009). Hopefully, the age of fraternity-style management in large public corporations ended 1/20/2009 and will be replaced by pragmatic adaptability.
Psychological Design
Graen (in press) introduced the concept of the “psychological design” as a prescription for overcoming resistance to change in large public corporations. According to this model, participants encase ideas of outmoded engineering processes in old habits locked together by functionally interdependent coworkers. “The way we’ve always done it” or “we tried that before” become the red lights stopping change. Those red lights must be turned green (unfrozen) before real change can proceed. As senior design architects know, any new engineering design of significant scope requires an appropriate psychological design to help turn the lights from red to green. Engineers also tend to employ other red lights such as “not invented here” to protect them against various imagined ego dangers for them in changing the way they do things. Network members need the push and active support of their top management teams (TMTs) and their emergent network leaders before they can willingly embrace innovations invented elsewhere. We all fear changes that we cannot understand, and we need our trusted, respected, and committed colleagues to help us understand and share the risks. Graen further described how participants can build and join new networks of people who have excellent working relationships of mutual respect of capabilities, trust of motives, and commitment to each other and their mission (partnerships). These self-organized networks emerge naturally as participants sharing common goals and common fates work together in interdependent roles. According to this theory, some participants seek to control more of their fate, and the mechanism of choice is the emergent network. These networks allow for much more complex and rapid communications, coordination, and cooperation among network members. The speed of rumors is but one example of communications that spread through even large organizations with amazing velocity and scope through such networks. Emergent networks often become subdesigns within the overall design of the functions or entire organization. Unfortunately, these networks cannot be commanded and controlled by orders, but they can be enlisted as allies in the mission to adapt the organization to the tsunami of the knowledge era. Once we have gotten our organization’s emergent components working for enhanced sustainability, we can consider the hard realities of discontinuous change.
My professional contribution to a complete CEO’s game-changing design is described in Jessica’s Web (Graen, 2007). It took 18 months to construct and fully engage. This large corporation (with its larger competitor’s home office literally across the street) was falling behind employing a traditional banking design. Although the CEO was committed, the main resistance to change came from the managers at every level protecting their turf. Their subordinates became guardedly for change after they were told that they could be given greater resources and authority to do their jobs. After the managers in face-to-face negotiations understood their subordinates’ justification, they agreed to this test of the new design. As expected, the new design made the corporation competitive once again. My main regret is that we didn’t have a manual to light our way. It would have been a great help.
Conclusion
No one component of sustainability of the health of the corporation such as profit or cash flow should drive game-changing strategies. Management by objectives (MBO) doesn’t work for overall corporate health of large public corporations. We found that game-changing CEOs concentrate on the sustainability of the mother or her children will suffer. The crash of 2008 can be seen as another failure of MBO without sustainability. Clearly, we need a shift from college fraternity positioning to supporting the mother’s health aggressively so that she may live long and prosper. CEOs need to become the chief healthcare provider for the mother and her family. I-O psychologists need to do our part.
References
Fairhurst, G. T. & Sarr, R. A. (1996). The art of framing. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Gibbons, D. (2009). Strategic development of network structures that support learning and adaptation. In G. B. Graen & J. A. Graen (Eds.), Game-changing designs: Research-based strategies. LMX leadership: The series. Vol. VII. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Graen, G. B. (in press). First scholar’s exchange about emergent leadership. Leadership Quarterly.
Graen, G. B. (2007). Jessica’s web: Women’s advantages in the knowledge era. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Graen, G. B., & Graen, J. A. (Eds.). (2009). Game-changing designs: Research-based strategies. LMX leadership: The series. Volume VII. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Krackhardt, D., & Hanson, J. (1993, July-August). Informal networks: The company behind the chart. Harvard Business Review, 104–111.
Sparrowe, R. T., & Liden, R. C. (2005). Two routes to influence: Integrating leader–member exchange and network perspectives. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 505–535.