Strategies for Dealing with Resistance to Change: An Essay Analysis

This essay provides a comparative analysis of strategies for managing change within organizations, focusing on communication, empathy, and participation as key approaches to address resistance to change. It explores how these strategies can be effectively implemented by managers, considering factors such as time constraints, awareness of the change process, and the individual transitions employees go through. The essay emphasizes the significance of empathy in understanding and supporting employees during change, highlighting its importance in fostering trust and facilitating behavioral change. Furthermore, it examines the role of employee participation in the planning, strategizing, and implementation of change, and the benefits of establishing a good communication base. The essay also discusses practical ways managers can proactively manage resistance to change, such as building change capacity through intensive interventions at micro, meso, and macro levels, and using training and tools like the ADKAR model to identify gaps and implement effective change management strategies. The conclusion stresses that organizational transformation is a crucial factor behind employees' resistance to change and underscores the importance of effective leadership and the use of tools like ADKAR to navigate this process successfully.

Running head: MANAGING CHANGE
MANAGING CHANGE
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Change is typically a transformation of pre-existing, customs and conventions. Since
all organisations execute their operations in dynamic settings, constantly have to undergo
changes to achieve success (Rafferty & Jimmieson, 2017). Change management comprises of
a number of strategies which help in enabling implementation of these changes. One of the
most vital aspects of management of change is resistance to change. It is human characteristic
to respond to any changes as well as uphold the status quo. Nonetheless since change is
unavoidable, rather than showing resistance towards changes organisations must attempt to
apply them with minimal constraints. Resistance towards transformation can either be
considered as explicit or implicit whereby personnel impossibly react or respond to a
alteration in strategies with utmost rejection and protest (Appelbaum et al., 2015). They
might also refrain from expressing their disapproval but possibly will do so in an implicit
manner by not acknowledging and improving the modifications. As a result, leaders must
apprehend these issues and support the employees accept these changes in a smooth manner.
The following essay will draw a comparative analysis of three different views namely
communication, empathy and participation for dealing with resistance towards change. In
addition to this the essay will highlight ways in which managers can positively and in an
effective manner deal with resistance to change.
Considering the fact that most of organisational leaders work within several
constraints and limitations which involve time, lack of awareness on the change procedure,
individuals’ transition through change, and at several points where empathy can be highly
significant during the change process to understand resistance to change (Serban & Iorga,
2016). One of the important steps in coping with employees’ resistance to change is to show
empathy towards them. For successfully leading any change, organisational managers on
leaders should develop novel leadership and enabling skills to work in accordance to people
act deeper levels, and most importantly at levels of perspectives, views, assumptions and not

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just behaviours (Demirci, 2016). Empathy is considered to be a successful strategy for
dealing with resistance to change as it is a multifaceted establishment which includes low
level mechanisms such as emotional constriction and superior level processes like
perspective-taking. Empathy draws more significance to deal with resistance to change than
communication as it facilitates individuals to obtain an in-depth understanding of another
person to help facilitating behavioural change by focusing on their views and emotions.
On the other hand, even though communication is also known considered as a key to
cope up with resistance to change during the procedure of change management, lack of
communication or poor communication can rise as a reason for employers to oppose the
change (Demirci, 2016). As a result, ways in which change process itself is communicated to
the employees is highly crucial as it determines the ways in which employees possibly will
react. In the view of Düren (2016), by showing empathetic consideration and support to deal
with resistance to change, employees will develop a feeling that leaders who are executive
the change have genuine interest in listening to their views and subsequently considered those
perceptions and views while implementing the process of change.
This, in comparison to communication, empathy and support as a strategy help leaders
to adapt the approach of employees and circumstances along with an empathetic approach
which will be highly effective to cope up with resistance of employees. According to Plotkin
and Shochet (2018), an increased level of empathy towards followers elevates the level of
trust which leaders can gain from the followers and consequently will enhance the need for
affiliation with their leader. On the other hand, one of the well-established and highly
effective strategies for dealing with resistance to change is to include employees directly in
the process of planning, strategizing and implementing change. Demirci (2016) has noted that
facilitating employees in the implementation of change offers them the scoop to contribute
their ideas and opinions which can lead the proposed change. While participation and

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involvement as a strategy focus on their perceptions and includes contribution of employees
to the change, empathy and support only put emphasis on their perceptions rather than
involving the same while implementing the change. The strategy of participating employees
in the change management plan successfully guarantees that employee participation is
structured and unstructured rather than being passive.
Lines et al. (2015) have pointed out that employee participation in workplace change
can endorse 'buy-in' to the change initiative and consideration that the proposed change is
justifiable and will be effective for their future success. However, in the view of Gunkel et al.
(2015), large scale plant change and employee participation can only be effective and
produce successful results only if it incorporates dual communication initiatives. It is
important to note that, only top down communication or a single way communication will not
yield success of attracting the desired obligation from the employees. Hence, it is important
for organisational managers as well as leaders to establish a good communication base with
employees on a regular basis by involving them in face to face interactions both individually
as well as in groups and further provide them with scopes for discussions. To make change
information most salient leaders can establish a communication base via a novel network
instead of bombarding employees with several data (Burnes, 2015). At this juncture,
communication can be seen as an effective strategy to deal with resistance to change by
embedding the need for modification within the policies which can direct the operation of the
organisation.
While on the other hand, through employee participation and involvement, employees
can show higher propensity of accepting the change rather than resisting it. This approach
tends to decrease the level of resistance with an expectation that employees will agree to
change (Gunkel et al., 2015). Companies like Woolworths use strategy of employee
participation during a cultural change management process and has observed a waiver of

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support from its employee base with low level of resistance towards change (Nankervis et al.,
2019). While it has been claimed that employee participation will not be effective if used as
mechanism to involve people to perform according to the demands of the management.
However, real employee participation for dealing with change resistance must be grounded
on respect and deliberation. All the strategies though have varied approaches but are
correlated which can yield great success while implementing change in organisation.
There are a number of ways by which contemporary business managers and positively
and proactively manage resistance to change. By building change capacity managers can
reduce the level of resistance which employees tend to exhibit during any proposed change
for the organisation. As per studies, change capacity is viewed as a type of change which
organisations can implement not for a single time, but can use it as all regular developments
of events in line with the responses received to the internal as well as external shifts (Gunkel
et al., 2015). Thus, establishing change capacity necessitates intensive intervention at micro,
meso as well as macro levels. At the micro level, comprehending and accepting various
approaches towards change are developed along with an improved inclination towards
change. On the other hand, in meso level, organisations tend to form a change enabler
system, by offering suitable resources and budgets to the proposed change. Lastly, on the
macro level, organisational leaders show a propensity of establishing a facilitative culture
along with current strategizing levels of the organisation.
In addition to this training and perceived organisational change can also be effective
for managers in dealing with change resistance. Training is typically associated with the
technical factors of change and reinforces the guarantee that employees must have acquired
the essential skills in order to execute novel tasks and share new viewpoints, frameworks and
opinions (Dana et al., 2016). Meanwhile training also shows the capacity to increase the level
of confidence of employees in successfully encountering challenges as well as changes and

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efficiently execute different tasks in a new environment. Thus, it can be considered that
training is an effective approach of managing change resistance of employees. Most
importantly, managers should use the ADKAR tool for identifying gaps in the change
managing procedure and further offer operative training for their workforces. According to
Nankervise et al. (2019), the ADKAR model has great capacity to identify reasons which lead
to ineffective outcome of change and health leaders and managers to implement essential
steps for making the change highly successful.
To conclude it is certain that organisational transformation is a crucial factor behind
employees' resistance to change. Resistance towards change can either be considered as overt
or implicit whereby employees impossibly react or respond to an alteration in policies with
utmost refusal and protest. While strategies like communication, employee involvement and
participation and leaders' empathy and support are seen as vital strategies for dealing with
change resistance, lack of communication and only showing empathy towards the workforce
can fail to yield success in the change management procedure. The resistance to change can
be positively managed by building change capacity with intensive involvement at micro,
meso as well as macro levels. The execution of organisational transformation is activated
through leaders and superiors of the organisation. ADKAR can be used as the important tool
to cope with the workers’ resistance to change.

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