Part 1: The Faces of Resistance

The Metaphor Language Research Center has taken many assignments to develop strategies for improving processes in developing countries in South Asia and Africa. This is the first of two articles and offers some observations from our experiences.

Some typical obstacles to change

  • Establishing your right to be heard in the right forum
  • Gaining attention of deciders
  • Personal impact on deciders
  • Absence of an efficient process to gain consensus frustrates all and shelves your initiative
  • Competing priorities, typically for money
  • Limited amount of time change agents have to invest
  • Long held antagonisms between stakeholders
  • Interminable talking

The rhetoric of resistance to change (as compiled by a group of change management practitioners)

– The “Resistors’ Rules of Thumb”– How non-formal, inertial resistance works:

  • Don’t participate, but work on “the boss” off-line, if possible
  • If forced to participate, don’t engage or take any responsibility for action
  • If forced to talk, gently explain why there is no better way of functioning
  • No overt disagreement with the objectives of change
  • No conflict, no emotion
  • If change is mandated, there’s no time to implement it
  • If change is mandated, new problems will arise later to delay or sidetrack action
  • If change is mandated, there will still be other, higher priorities
  • If the change agent is an outsider, s/he didn’t understand
  • If some change takes place, countervailing forces can still be marshaled to bring things back
  • The change agent will eventually go away
  • In a big organization, any force can be successfully resisted, including the “big boss”

Some additional Learnings re: Resistance

  • It is not necessarily powerful bad guys who just want to take care of themselves– The leading problem is more often complexity and inability to characterize the problem in a way that motivates action (make it “Mind-Sized”)
  • A passive form of resistance is common– which results in change being agreed but not ultimately implemented. Apparent causes are lack of funds to achieve the change. Actual roots typically rest in unwillingness to admin current or past weakness in the organization that would result in the leader’s loss of stature or loss of face.
  • If all stakeholders are not participants in creating a vision of how the change would work, it will not be achieved
  • Open discussion among stakeholders must be achieved
  • Clear communication with a common vocabulary is necessary
  • Realistic plans and milestones must be set

Anecdotes re: social and cultural complexities that can compound the problems of change in developing countries

  • Leadership: The population in Muslim countries have no cultural heroes except Mohammed, because of deeply held religious beliefs
  • Hidden power structures can circumscribe solution options (a seemingly obvious change in in health care training was blocked in one country because the health minister owned a building that would be vacated by the change)
  • Westerners education levels are often inversely proportional to their effectiveness in developing country situations (the best ideas in Zambia government restructuring came from tribal chiefs)
  • In some African countries, such as Zambia and Zimbabwe, the impact of AIDS has hollowed out government effectiveness
  • Absence of basics such as clean water, effective transportation, education and health facilities compound difficulties in achieving change, even when all parties are committed. (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs plays a role here too)