Jeff Toaddy and I recently attended an online course for ITIL’s Service Transition processes. These are the processes by which new services, or significant changes to existing ones, are put into an ongoing, operational mode. As a footnote in the training, there was a mention to the 10 reasons people resist change:
- Loss of control.
- Excessive personal uncertainty.
- Avoid surprises.
- The difference effect.
- Loss of face.
- Fear about competence.
- Ripples.
- Increase in workload.
- Past resentments.
- Real threats.
A few of these didn’t make much sense to me without more information (eg, ripples?! potato chips? what?). I’m not sure if it’s cool to link to a blog in a blog, but I ran across this article in my research and thought others might benefit from a quick read:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/09/ten-reasons-people-resist-chang/
As I think about the changes we are working to enact within our IT organization; within the campus community at large; and, most importantly within myself, I find myself benefiting by using this list to identify what barricades might stand in my way to enact positive change.
It’s far easier to remove a known obstacle than an unknown one.
Like. The comments in the HBR blog were also interesting.
I agree with Annie’s point about the past. We need the past to learn from and to make adjustments to improve our path going forward. It is what humans do and are pretty good at most of the time.
Great Post, Bob!
Change is hard on so many levels. I appreciate your willingness to look within yourself to identify what things may get in your way of moving the organization in different ways.
I use the word different to accentuate that the past was not wrong, it was what was defined at a previous point in time to move the organization forward.
We have a new leader with different ideas and different approaches. I, for one, am excited about the possibilities of what lies ahead as we face our fears and resistance to change!