Introduction
Should organisations embrace or reject resistance to change? In order to critically evaluate this, one must first understand what resistance to change is. According to Dent & Goldberg (1999) resistance to change is defined as a behaviour that is used by an individual as form of protection “from effects of real or imagined change” (pg. 34). The change that is spoken of here says Tichacek (2006) is inevitable despite our best efforts to combat it (pg. 1). In order to further discuss this resistance to change we will look more closely at whether or not resistance to change alone leads to the failure of organisational change initiative.
Defence Mechanisms
One of the ways that people can express resistance to change is through various
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Change agents can be seen as managers and leaders of change and assist change recipients to deal with ushering in a change. It is often shown that resistance to change is attributed to the change recipients as well as, according to what Ford, Ford & D’Amelio (2008) state, that change agents are a part of the reason that brings about resistance to change (pg. 362). In cases where this situation exists, change agents put themselves at a higher risk of failing to achieve change initiatives. These change agents can bring about more resistance to change as well. Kavanagh & Ashkanay (2006) also go on to state that the general behaviours of leaders, as well as the way in which they deal with the change, are of importance when looking at resistance to change (pg. 2). Depending on the way change agents themselves deal with the change will also affect how change recipients deal with the …show more content…
Firstly, trust issues, which revolve around change agents not being able to trust others. Another factor would be the case of bad communication and misrepresentation between the change agents and recipients. An example of this would be if the change agent does not fully understanding the change recipient, and chooses not to rectify this set-back. The last factor is “resisting resistance”, which means that the change owners themselves are opposed to certain changes. (Ford, Ford & Angelo, 2008). All of these factors lead to the resistance of change which can hamper the progress to execute successful organisational change