Understand Why People Resist Change

Resistance is a natural response to change. Resistance can be categorized into two: obvious resistance and less-obvious resistance. Obvious resistance is when people tell you directly that they are not willing to participate in your plans. While less-obvious resistance is when people say nothing to you or they remain silenced. Somehow. I believed that people don’t resist to change, you can observe your friends and your neighbor, look at their personal lifestyle and see what changes they made over the past few years. People don’t resist change, they just resist being changed. All you have to do is put people in charge of their own change process.

Understanding the most common reasons people resist to change provides you the opportunity to plan your strategy to address these factors.

• Reason for the change is unclear

People do not understand the need for change, it is not necessary.

• Fear of the unknown

People will NOT take active steps toward the unknown unless it has been recognized as trustworthy.

• Comfort level.

People are connected to the old method. They would rather complain than change. Especially from those who have a strong believe to the current method.

• Benefits and rewards

People are more likely to be profit-driven, as long as it is worthy for them to make changes.

In order to win people’s commitment for change, you must engage them on both a rational level and an emotional level. Try to understand what might be really worrying them and allow time for the concerns to be raised and then work together to find solutions accordingly.