As I worked with a colleague on a business change program this week, I was reminded of big mistake. The mistaken assumption about the power of facts to address resistance to change.
Essentially the assumption is this.
Information creates comfort and engagement.
Many change communication plans assume facts will automatically reduce resistance to change.
But this is a leap of faith that doesn’t always prove true.
I am reminded of a story told by Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit teacher and psychotherapist, of counseling a fellow priest who was having difficulty quitting smoking. His friend, de Mello said, didn’t need more information about smoking. In fact he had truckloads of information demonstrating that cigarette smoking causes cancer. What he didn’t have was the awareness that it was actually killing him.
When we are responsible for helping people through change, we use information about what is happening as if it were a magic wand. When we do, it’s hard to understand why people don’t calm down once the regular bulletins are going out and posters line the bathrooms.
There’s a reason for this. Information about the new system going in, or new process being adopted has no power to settle people down. Human emotions, like anxiety, can remain perfectly untouched by data because it possesses no power to make us think a certain way.
Each of us is sovereign in our own ability to think and imagine. From sports to politics to pets, we all think differently from one another even when we find ourselves in exactly the same circumstances.
That doesn’t mean information isn’t needed and helpful. It is. But we can be smart about what we expect from it.
And let’s not give it more power than it has.
About the author.
Elese Coit is a Large-Scale Change Consultant who helps organizations succeed at technical, system and process transformation. Elese Coit & Associates partners with companies undergoing change to build engagement and overcome resistance .
