Managing Resistance to Change
Managing resistance to change is the planned work of anticipating where people will push back, diagnosing why, and responding to the specific causes, from listening and involvement to escalation through the sponsor. A resistance management strategy treats resistance as information to understand before acting, not as behavior to suppress or punish.
Quick facts
- Type
- Practice (planned set of activities within change management)
- Origin
- Long-standing management practice; classic framing by John Kotter and Leonard Schlesinger (1979), six approaches to dealing with resistance
- Used when
- Before and throughout implementation, wherever the impact assessment shows significant losses or uncertainty
- Related models
- Kanter's reasons people resist change, the change formula, stakeholder mapping
- Exam relevance
- APMG CM Foundation, The Work of the Change Manager (WM0203); Practitioner (WM0302)
What is resistance management in change?
Resistance to change describes why and how people push back. Resistance management is what the change team does about it. It has two sides:
- Proactive: predicting where resistance is likely and reducing its causes before it appears.
- Reactive: noticing resistance when it surfaces, finding its cause and responding.
The change manager usually designs the approach. Line managers carry most of the conversations, because they are closest to the people affected. The sponsor provides authority and visible commitment, and steps in when other routes have not worked.
Managing resistance to change is therefore a planned workstream with clear roles, not an improvised reaction.
How do you manage resistance step by step?
- Anticipate. Use the impact assessment and stakeholder analysis to predict where losses, extra work and uncertainty will be greatest. Past changes are a guide: groups that were badly treated last time will be wary.
- Diagnose root causes. Find out why a group is pushing back before deciding what to do.
- Listen. Create safe routes for concerns: team conversations, drop-in sessions, change agents, anonymous questions. Listen to understand, not to rebut.
- Involve. Bring affected people into design, testing and pilots. Involvement reduces loss of control and often improves the solution.
- Respond to specific concerns. Information for misunderstanding, training and coaching for competence worries, workload relief for extra effort, design changes for real flaws.
- Escalate with the sponsor when needed. Use the sponsor's authority when resistance persists among managers or groups the change team cannot influence.
- Follow up. Resistance shifts as the change moves from announcement to daily work; keep checking after go-live.
Managing resistance to change therefore runs from planning to reinforcement, not only at go-live.
Why start with root causes rather than visible behavior?
The same behavior can have very different causes. At Brightwater Health, some nurses keep using paper charts after a new electronic system goes live. Conversations reveal four groups:
| Cause | Response |
|---|---|
| Anxiety about making errors in front of patients | Floor-walkers and supervised practice |
| Missing skills after a one-off training session | Short refresher sessions on the ward |
| Workload: the system adds time during peak hours | Adjust the workflow or staffing during the transition |
| A real flaw: the system misses a medication field | Fix the design and tell staff it was fixed |
More training would help the second group and frustrate the fourth. Root causes also differ between groups, so one diagnosis cannot simply be reused everywhere.
Managing resistance to change therefore begins with diagnosis, because a response that fits one cause can make another worse.
What approaches did Kotter and Schlesinger describe?
In a 1979 Harvard Business Review article, John Kotter and Leonard Schlesinger identified four basic causes of resistance: self-interest, misunderstanding and low trust, different assessments of the change, and low tolerance for change. They then described six approaches, summarized here in our words:
| Approach | Typically used when | Drawback |
|---|---|---|
| Education and communication | Resistance comes from missing or wrong information | Slow if many people are involved |
| Participation and involvement | Others hold needed information or have power to resist | Can be slow; may produce a weaker design |
| Facilitation and support | Resistance comes from fear and adjustment problems | Takes time and money, with no guarantee |
| Negotiation and agreement | A group will clearly lose and can block the change | Expensive; invites others to negotiate too |
| Manipulation and co-optation | Other approaches are too slow or costly | Damages trust if people realize it |
| Explicit and implicit coercion | Speed is essential and the initiators hold power | Risky; leaves people resentful |
They advised choosing and combining approaches to fit the situation, rather than relying on one.
Kotter and Schlesinger's approaches therefore offer a range of responses, with forceful options carrying a growing cost in trust.
When should the sponsor get involved in resistance?
Most resistance is handled closer to the work: by line managers, change agents and the change team, through listening, involvement and answers to specific concerns.
The sponsor's direct involvement is most appropriate when resistance persists among managers or groups the change team cannot influence on its own. Middle managers who resist are a particular risk, because their teams take their cue from them. A conversation with the sponsor makes the organization's commitment clear and can remove obstacles only senior authority can move.
Escalating every objection to the sponsor has costs. It bypasses line managers, signals that concerns are being overruled and uses up the sponsor's limited attention.
Managing resistance to change therefore keeps the sponsor in reserve for persistent resistance, while making their support visible from the start.
What are common mistakes in managing resistance?
- Waiting until resistance is visible, by which time positions have hardened.
- Labeling or removing "resisters" instead of finding out what they have noticed.
- Repeating the same message louder, which answers none of the actual causes.
- One response for everyone, even though causes differ by group.
- Ignoring valid objections, which turns a fixable flaw into a failed rollout.
- Declaring victory at go-live, when much resistance appears only in daily use.
Managing resistance to change works when it stays curious about causes for the whole life of the change.
Managing resistance vs. resistance to change: what is the difference?
| Managing resistance | Resistance to change | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A planned set of activities | A set of reactions people have to a change |
| Main question | What do we do about it, and who does it? | Why are people pushing back, and how? |
| Key content | Anticipate, diagnose, listen, involve, respond, escalate | Causes, positive resistance, dispositional resistance |
| Typical sources | Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) | Oreg (2003); Ford, Ford & D'Amelio (2008); Kanter (2012) |
Resistance to change explains the reactions; managing resistance is the strategy that responds to them.
Exam focus
At Foundation level (WM0203) expect comprehension of the elements of a resistance management strategy, such as anticipating sources of resistance, diagnosing root causes, listening, involving people, responding to specific concerns and escalating to the sponsor when resistance persists. A common trap presents waiting for resistance to appear, removing resistant people, or escalating every objection as good practice. WM0302 is assessed at Practitioner level, by application to a case study.
Practise this syllabus area →FAQ
How do you manage resistance to change?
Anticipate where resistance is likely, then diagnose its causes before acting. Listen to concerns, involve people in design and testing, and respond to each specific cause. Escalate to the sponsor when resistance persists among groups the change team cannot influence, and keep checking after go-live.
What are Kotter and Schlesinger's six approaches to resistance?
Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) described education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and co-optation, and explicit and implicit coercion. They advised choosing and combining approaches to fit the situation, noting that forceful options carry real costs.
Who is responsible for managing resistance to change?
The change manager designs the approach and supports others. Line managers hold most of the conversations, because people look to them first. The sponsor shows visible commitment and steps in when resistance persists among managers or groups the change team cannot influence.
Should you remove people who resist change?
Removing people is rarely the right first response. Resistance often signals a real issue, such as a design flaw, missing skills or workload. Listening and responding to the cause works better and keeps trust. Coercion, if ever used, carries lasting costs in trust and goodwill.
Why is a proactive approach to resistance better?
Once resistance is visible, people have often taken public positions that are hard to reverse. Anticipating likely resistance from the impact assessment lets the team address causes early, through information, involvement and support, before they harden into opposition.
Sources
- Kotter, J. P. & Schlesinger, L. A. (1979). Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review, 57(2), 106–114. Reprinted July–August 2008.
- Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W. & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362–377.
- Kanter, R. M. (2012). Ten reasons people resist change. Harvard Business Review (online).
- APMG International — Change Management certification (syllabus topics WM0203, WM0302)
- Last reviewed