“You can’t just come in and dictate. You’ve got to be open to putting yourself in the other person’s place.” -Charles Kamen, vice president of human resources, MediaNews Group Inc., Denver

“You show them respect publicly and privately. You try very hard to speak to them. It’s not personal.” -Carole Leigh Hutton, executive editor and vice president, San Jose Mercury News

Change Resistance Index For insight on your organization’s capacity to handle resistance to change, answer “yes” or “no.” A formal process exists in my company for generating and vetting innovative ideas. Line employees routinely are involved early in change initiatives. Management listens and responds to concerns about changes. Management provides regular updates about progress toward change initiatives. Management actively solicits employee opinions through a formal process. All people are treated with respect and dignity, even when they differ with management. I can name someone who disagreed with management’s view on a given topic but was promoted anyway. My boss can answer my questions about change initiatives or point me to the answers quickly. The leader of the change project or initiative has high credibility in the organization. The business rationale for change has been explained clearly, and repeatedly, to all employees. “Yes” responses: 8-10 You are well-positioned to gain employee buy-in for your initiative. 5-7 Take time to address “no” areas, and you can probably proceed safely. 3-4 If you must proceed, focus efforts on open, honest, frequent and direct communication with employees about the need for change and its impact on their specific jobs and functions. 0-2 Don’t do it! The culture will likely reject your initiative. – Leading Edge Associates

Got backbone?

You’ll need it. Battle-tested executives say resolve is crucial if you want to lead change.

There’s more to it, of course. Change leaders must sharpen their communication skills. They must convey respect for employees and help them cope with their fears. They must keep their own egos in check, making sure defensiveness doesn’t get in the way.

And they must come to terms with the inevitability – indeed, the desirability – of resistance.

Glenn Proctor recalls being tagged as a “hard ass” years ago by his former Knight Ridder and Gannett bosses. During his first 18 months as vice president and executive editor of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, he reorganized the staff, instituted a daily critique of the paper and established a multimedia team, among other changes. He says he has never had a tough time overcoming resistance.

“I don’t believe in that,” he says. “If I have a tough time, there’s something wrong. Everybody will tell you, ‘He doesn’t do resistance.’ ”

Proctor attributes his management style partly to his Marine training, but you don’t need to be a Marine to handle opposition.

Carole Leigh Hutton has had her resolve tested again and again. In July, within weeks of becoming executive editor and vice president of the San Jose Mercury News, she presided over the elimination of more than 40 positions, 31 by layoff.

Previously, at the Detroit Free Press, she led staff through the creation of a joint operating agreement; a bitter strike; the 2002 death of her boss and mentor, Executive Editor Bob McGruder; a massive rethinking of the paper’s content and design; and the sale of the Knight Ridder property to Gannett Co. of McLean, Va.

Hutton describes overcoming resistance this way: “I think of it as will.”

Roadblocks are abundant in any change initiative, and roadblocks fuel resistance. Even highly motivated employees face challenges in learning new processes and dealing with ambiguity. The smallest setbacks in implementation can cause dissenters to dig in and allies to lose motivation.

“You really have to have a backbone,” says P.J. Browning, publisher of The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, who changed nearly the entire executive team when she arrived early in 2005. At age 42, she is at her seventh newspaper.

Successful change leaders know that being firm in the face of resistance is crucial, but ignoring resistance can be foolhardy. The remainder of this article offers strategies for engaging resistance in a way that helps drive change forward.

Think Positively

Most managers understand that resistance is a byproduct of change. Machiavelli put it this way: “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than to initiate a new order of things. For the initiator has enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system, and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.”

Shaun O’L. Higgins, director of sales and marketing at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, made a radical structural change, eliminating the circulation department and the position of advertising director.

“Any time you propose a change in people’s work routines or reporting structures or departmental structures, it meets resistance,” he says. “It’s the law of nature … a physical law … a hard-wired resistance.”

The change agent’s job is to neutralize enmity and fire up the defenders. Before you do anything, check your attitude. Resistance is not only inevitable, but welcome. Here’s why:

• If you’re meeting little or no resistance, then your change initiative probably is not particularly important, significant or profound.
• Like physical pain, resistance can be a valuable warning sign. It draws attention to areas that may need it. In Managing Business Change for Dummies (For Dummies, 2001), Beth A. Evard and Craig A. Gipple write: “If you knee-jerk and shoot messengers as the enemy, then you’ll be left operating from a data vacuum and vulnerable to surprise attacks from hidden problems.”
• If no resistance is voiced, then managers might think their plan is being accepted. However, employees may simply have taken their concerns underground and will show their concerns through half-hearted implementation.

The best approach to confronting resistance “is providing an environment that encourages questions and challenges management’s ideas,” Evard and Gipple write. A process that is clear about challenges and options, exposes concerns and then addresses them quickly, decisively and respectfully stands a good chance of success.

Resist the temptation to believe that employees who voice concerns are negative or disloyal. “They’re just human beings struggling to protect themselves and their families,” Evard and Gipple write.

Employees’ reasons for resistance are often legitimate. It could be that the change initiative is, indeed, a bad idea. It could be that more change is occurring in their lives and at work than they can absorb. It could be that the proposed change will reduce their power or make them feel inadequate, and they’re trying to protect their self-esteem.

Before rushing to squash resistance, consider what you have heard. Does the initiative really make sense? Should you consider staging implementation differently to allow people, and the organization, adequate time for training and adapting? How can you prepare people for the new order, often with new roles and tasks, so they feel competent and valued?

“I learned that you probably need to look at the other point of view a little bit more closely and openly, and you have to exhibit – within a reasonable time frame – more patience,” says Charles Kamen, vice president of human resources for MediaNews Group Inc. in Denver. “You can’t just come in and dictate. You’ve got to be open to putting yourself in the other person’s place.”

Show your willingness to listen. And always treat all employees, even naysayers, with dignity and respect. This will earn you respect in turn and make it easier for your allies in the trenches to persuade those reluctant to change.

“You show them respect publicly and privately,” Hutton says. “You try very hard to speak to them. It’s not personal. I showed deep and honest and sincere respect for the people who disagreed. ... ‘I understand where you’re coming from.’ … That’s the only way you can do it.”

 

Manage the Culture

Studies show that as many as two out of three change initiatives fail. If you want yours to be among the successful one-third, heed Michael L. Tushman and Charles A. O’Reilly, authors of the groundbreaking book Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal (Harvard Business Press, 1997).

“Managing culture is the most neglected, and highest leverage, tool for promoting innovation and change,” they write.

Defined as “the way we do things around here,” culture has potential to propel or derail any change initiative. Before implementing change, smart managers assess the organization’s readiness and adjust the change, timing or implementation accordingly. Steps might include:

• Notifying opinion leaders as early as possible and trying to obtain their buy-in
• Involving potential dissenters in planning
• Encouraging employees to work out implementation details, assuring them they will know best how to take the product or service to market
• Acknowledging and rewarding behaviors that support the change in a manner recognized by the culture
• Ensuring that top executives and other managers are visibly “walking the talk”
• Openly evaluating the change effort, using a diverse cross section of employees.

Tushman and O’Reilly created the “congruence” model, a diagnostic process by which managers look at four factors – culture, people, tasks and formal organizational structure – to determine how well each will support the desired change.

Whether or not you use their model or one of your own design, the point is: Before launching significant change, systematically examine whether your people, culture and system will support it. Doing so is the surest way to anticipate and address resistance before it threatens the project’s success.

 

Address Fear of Failure

“When developing new products, make them good enough that target customers say, ‘This is great!’ Pushing beyond that doesn’t necessarily make customers happier.” -Stephen T. Gray, managing director, Newspaper Next

At the heart of resistance is fear, and fear of failure may top the list.

By its very nature, change involves risk, and failure is an inescapable component. New processes are at play. People asked to implement change often aren’t prepared to meet new expectations, and the plan may not correctly anticipate response of the marketplace or competitors.

Experts agree that even successful change initiatives need recalibration several times after launch to remain vigorous and effective. Failures along the way can provide the learning that propels innovation.

Newspaper Next, the American Press Institute project advocating a customer-centric approach to revitalizing the industry, urges: Fail quickly and cheaply. Don’t wait for an idea to be 100 percent perfect. By then, competitors will have beaten you to the punch. Go when it’s “good enough.”

In an industry that prides itself on quality, this has been a tough sell.

“Yes, the concept is hard for some newspaper people to digest at first,” says Stephen T. Gray, managing director of Newspaper Next. But some get it quickly, he adds, and find it liberating.

Gray cites the example of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., which had purchased video cameras for the newsroom but was waiting for parent Gannett Co. to provide training. When wildfires broke out, editors decided to apply the “good enough” concept and sent staffers out to shoot. The usable footage became a primary source of exclusive video and drove significant traffic to the paper’s Web site.

“In my workshops, I stress that ‘good enough’ doesn’t mean dumbing down the core product,” Gray says. “It means that when you’re developing new products, you make them good enough that the target customers say, ‘This is great!’ Pushing beyond that level of quality doesn’t necessarily make customers happier. Rather, it tends to delay your launch and make the product more expensive to produce.”

In Tough Choices: A Memoir (Portfolio Hardcover, 2006), former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina writes about similar challenges at the quality-conscious company, where she coined the phrase “perfect enough” to try and allay concerns.

“The goal is not perfection; the goal is progress,” she repeatedly told H-P workers. “And in a world that’s moving faster all the time, an imperfect decision made in a timely fashion and executed well is better than a perfect decision made too late.”

The comments from Gray and Fiorina offer language managers can adopt to help employees embrace the concepts of risk and failure. Other tactics include:

• Acclimating workers to the concept of risk by involving them in smaller projects where consequences of failure are not as great
• Recognizing people who make a great effort on a risky project, even if it doesn’t fully succeed
• Ensuring the focus after failure is on lessons learned, not assigning blame
• Openly discussing your own mistakes and the lessons learned from them.

 

Tips for Overcoming Resistance to Change
Focus on the goal. You are pushing change for a reason, ideally one that involves an important, strategic outcome for the company. Find ways to remind yourself and others systematically of that reason. For instance, include the rationale in every speech or in comments at each meeting. Talk to employees face to face. Use every conceivable communications tool, but keep in mind that nothing works better than face-to-face encounters. Schedule time each day to work the room and talk with two or three employees. Work on your listening skills. When employees voice concerns, don’t become defensive. Simply listen, ask questions, repeat employees’ key points so they know they’ve been heard and understood, thank them for their input and assure them you will consider their comments. Then do so.	Have a strong implementation plan. Nothing will undercut your initiative more quickly than sloppy execution, which emboldens naysayers and diminishes your allies. Expect problems. An axiom of change is that the final outcomes cannot be safely predicted. Things will go wrong. Anticipate the need for flexibility, and focus staff members on learning and improving rather than on fixing blame. What’s in it for me? Help employees understand clearly how the change will affect their jobs and lives, what benefits they might gain from the change and your new expectations about their role and performance.	Give no free passes. Consider inviting resisters into the process. Solicit their ideas about executing the change. Invite them to sit on the implementation task force. If the resister is an opinion leader, weigh pros and cons of assigning that person a leadership role in the change initiative. Better yet, solicit resisters’ input before the change is announced. Send this message: There are no free passes in criticizing change. In your workplace, people can identify problems only if they are willing to work toward solutions. – Larry Olmstead

“You find front-line workers, you take the time to find out what’s important to them.” -P.J. Browning, publisher, The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph

Competent Leadership Minimizes Resistance The more capable your team is at leading change, the more willing your staff will be to follow. A report prepared by Leading Edge Associates, released earlier this year by NAA, identifies 10 critical competencies for leading change in a challenged industry. Spend time developing these key competencies, and you’ll minimize resistance. Vision. Identify goals and champion innovation. Customer focus. Identify customer needs and new markets. Championing change. Commit resources to change, stay upbeat and be resilient. Driving results. Set challenging goals; hold yourself and others accountable. Interpersonal communication. Speak and write clearly; readily share information. Relationship management. Allocate time to others and help them achieve their goals. Coaching and developing. Convey high expectations and let others try new things. Integrity. Be ethical and honest. Stand up for your beliefs and deliver on your promises. Business acumen. Know how your organization is performing. Learning agility. Look for opportunities to develop new skills. – Leading Edge Associates

“There are key people I talk to all the time. Everybody needs a mentor.” -Glenn Proctor, vice president and executive editor, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch

Find and Empower Allies

No executive can successfully drive change alone. Newspaper executives we interviewed all say they look for allies.

Hutton says that in Detroit, she started with people who weren’t tradition-bound. “Ultimately, I went after one of the most accomplished investigative reporters in the newsroom because the street cred he had … exceeded anything the usual suspects had. I knew if he got it, it would be the best sell. It was terrific. He was a hugely valuable part of the group. He very much challenged management.”

Browning said allies might include top managers, but “I would say my nature is … you find front-line workers, you take the time to find out what’s important to them. … The allies are there to help you whenever you’re trying to communicate.”

Allies will be effective if you keep them fully informed about the change process, and solicit their input – especially about how the process should unfold with the rest of the staff and with customers.

Communicate Importance

Change management requires constant communication about the initiative and the reasons for it – repeatedly, across platforms, until employees can recite the script in their sleep.

Proctor says he talked to his staff “about what we need to do to preserve our future,” while Higgins notes that the industry has to focus on growth.

“Change has usually meant downsizing,” Higgins says. “The people involved have to be told that this is designed to improve productivity, not lower employment. ‘If we do this right, we will better utilize your talents, our talents. The best way to preserve your employment and income is for us [his circulation employees] to lower the number of delivery mistakes, adopt new and higher standards and to capitalize on your experience. If we can achieve this, everything is going to be stable.’ Those kinds of statements are critical.”

Manage Your Stress

Driving change requires poise and the ability to remain upbeat, even when under fire. Being on stage, on point and in control 24/7 can lead to battle fatigue. All managers need to let off steam sometimes.

So does Browning go home and kick the cat?

No, she says. “I have dogs.”

In all seriousness, what is her technique for reducing stress? “I guess I outsource my venting to a couple of really good friends who know me. Of course, my poor husband has always been very, very supportive.”

Proctor, who has mentored throughout his career, concedes, “Yes, the guy who mentors a lot of others also has mentors. There are key people I talk to all the time. Everybody needs a mentor.”

Kamen offers a productive solution for executives who feel frustrated. Sometimes, he does household chores just so he can see it’s possible to start and finish something quickly.

And as any spouse will tell you, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Larry Olmstead and Jerry Ceppos, former newspaper executives, are with Leading Edge Associates, a firm based in San Jose that helps companies with organizational change, leadership development and diversity. Its Web site is www.leadingedgeassociates.net.