Practice : Resistance Surfacing and Engagement
Purpose and Strategic Importance
Resistance Surfacing and Engagement is the practice of actively drawing out the concerns, objections, and doubts that accompany significant change — and engaging with them honestly — rather than minimising, dismissing, or working around them. Resistance is not an obstacle to change; it is information. When leaders engage with it directly, they often improve the change plan, surface risks they had not considered, and build the trust that makes eventual adoption more durable.
Leaders who treat resistance as disloyalty create environments where concerns go underground rather than being resolved. Hidden resistance is far more damaging than visible resistance — it manifests in slow adoption, passive non-compliance, and the quiet departure of the people who cared enough to have opinions.
Description of the Practice
- Leaders create explicit, safe channels for concerns about change to be expressed.
- Resistance is treated as a legitimate signal: "What are we hearing, and what might it be telling us?"
- Leaders engage with concerns directly and honestly, acknowledging what is genuinely difficult.
- Where resistance reflects a real problem with the change, the change is adapted.
- Where resistance reflects a misunderstanding, it is addressed with honesty and clarity — not dismissal.
How to Practise It (Playbook)
1. Getting Started
- In the next change communication, explicitly invite concerns: "I expect some of you will have reservations about this. I want to hear them."
- Create a mechanism for anonymous feedback during change — not everyone will speak publicly.
- When a concern is raised, start with curiosity: "Help me understand what concerns you about this."
- Distinguish between concerns that reveal real flaws in the change and concerns that reflect the discomfort of transition.
2. Scaling and Maturing
- Build resistance engagement into the change plan as a formal stage, not an afterthought.
- Synthesise and categorise concerns: which are material risks, which are communication gaps, which are transition anxiety?
- Close the feedback loop: "We heard this concern from multiple people. Here is how we are responding."
- Track whether concerns decrease in volume and specificity over time as they are addressed.
3. Team Behaviours to Encourage
- People express concerns early, when there is still time to address them, rather than after the change has been locked in.
- Concerns are framed constructively: specific, grounded in real impact, and accompanied by what the person needs.
- Leaders who receive resistance treat it as useful, not threatening.
- The team can see that resistance has shaped the change plan — not just been received and set aside.
4. Watch Out For…
- Leaders who ask for concerns but visibly dismiss them — this shuts down honest expression quickly and permanently.
- Treating all resistance as equivalent: some concerns are systemic risks; others are personal anxieties. Both deserve engagement, but differently.
- Using "we've heard your concerns" as a closing statement rather than an opening for genuine dialogue.
- Leaders who have privately decided to proceed regardless and go through the motions of engagement.
5. Signals of Success
- People voice concerns directly to leaders, not just laterally in frustration.
- Change plans are visibly improved by resistance engagement — specific concerns have been addressed.
- Adoption is higher among those who had opportunities to surface concerns and were heard.
- Post-change surveys show that people felt their concerns were taken seriously, even if not all were acted upon.
- Leaders become more confident in engaging resistance because they have seen it lead to better outcomes.