Resistance to Change - is it really about fear?

If you were to ask a collection of managers and executives 'why do employee resist change?', you will generally get a simple answer - Fear. This question and answer has become almost gospel in management education. Yet, managers need to be aware that both the assumption in this question (that employees do resist change) and the common answer (fear) are counter to a significant amount of research. So let us tackle each part in turn.

First, do employees resist change? Dent and Goldberg in 1999 wrote a fantastic paper titled “Challenging ‘resistance to change’”. They essentially, and I believe accurately, argue that employees don’t resist change; they simply resist bad things happening to them. For instance, if you are telling employees that they will all receive a 20% salary cut, one should expect employees to resist such a scenario. This however is not ‘resistance to change’. It’s ‘resistance to bad things happening to me’. Managers need to understand that when they initiate a change, there may be employees negatively impacted by the change.

This leads to the false answer to the question: that employees resist change out of fear. I argue that it is not fear of the change that causes resistance, but instead two potential influences. The first, as described above, is fear of less. The second is uncertainty of the future. Often change, even natural or positive change is shrouded in uncertainty. Reorganizations may actually provide an employee with new opportunities, but they potentially come with new coworkers, new bosses, new skills to learn, and so forth.

Uncertainty is a condition we naturally avoid and/or fight. It is a very instinctive reaction based in our fight-or-flight survival mechanics. When people are unsure of what to expect, they naturally prepare for the worst and this leads to anxiety, stress, and eventually physiological and psychological distress.

There are several lessons for management to draw from this. First, this further emphasizes the importance of employee trust in management. Effective, transparent, and trusted communication is seen is one of the most effective means to limit stress during change. Second, while contrary to common industry practice, times of change are a moment to increase communication with employees, not limit it.

In my experience, both as a management consultant and as an internal manger, I have observed this phenomena many times. Unfortunately, the ‘employees resist change’ mantra has become so accepted that leaders do not seek to discuss change with their employees as they feel it will increase stress. However, this lack of communication is one of the primary factors in the very stress they are looking to avoid. By having open, honest, and trusting communication with employees, leaders can potentially limit the amount of stress employees experience during change and improve the potential for change success.

Dent, E. B., & Goldberg, S. (1999). Challenging 'resistance to change.'. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35(1), 25-41. doi:10.1177/0021886399351003