The infamous “resistance” to any proposed change takes many forms.
There are legitimate concerns, there’s contrariness, there’s fear of change, there’s protectionism, there’s a confrontation with a history of failed or abandoned initiatives, and finally, refusal to execute the work involved in the implementation of change, which unfortunately amounts to plain laziness.
Arriving at a consensus within a group of people may well face every previously stated type of objection, making compliance and adoption of almost any novelty / improvement / project difficult or even impossible at the best of times, no matter the value of the proposed initiative or change.
Over the course of the next few days (we hope), the author will endeavor to write out a few thoughts on each of the above.
Contrariness
The contrarian takes two forms: he can be a naysayer to anything he does not himself initiate, and thus, becomes a negative influence and rarely a helping hand in any of the activities of the group, corporate or otherwise, or he can be a conscientious critic of unlikely, unpalatable, unreasonable, inefficient or ineffective practices, methods or proposed “advances”, seeking to ensure quality and thoughtful of achieving specific goals. Of course, whether or not the contrarian can deliver his message in palatable form remains a challenge, and the (often different or opposed) views tendered by said contrarian can clash with the majority or the view adopted by leadership. Both require considerable maturity to accept the opposing current and trigger intelligent discussions based on analyzing what that impopular person is saying to obtain the value or pointed correctives that his views may contain.
In the above, “unlikely, unpalatable, unreasonable, inefficient or ineffective practices, methods or proposed “advances”…” could merely signify that there may be room for better adjustments or they may be downright necessary: the person deemed a contrarian may merely seek a slightly better approach, or more bang for the (same) buck…
As examples…
One anecdote I often use (and may even be found in another posting on this site) is the advent of the first Windows-based or Windows-compatible (the Microsoft registered brand used without permission, not the household-type) vibration condition-monitoring software. Given the current preponderance of that operational system or platform, the reader will understand a few years have gone by since the anecdotal incident.
That software’s main qualities were:
1) it was going to be first to market under the increasingly dominant Windows (see previous disclaimer),
2) it actually worked without crashing,
3) it simplified report printing and layouts, but only for what was now extremely basic (or entry-level) reporting.
The same software principal defects were:
1) It offered little except basic functions, made readily accessible not through any ingenious design, but merely through the Graphic-User Interface’s benefits,
2) the software did away with many of the useful application functions that were readily available under DOS (but of course, that was going to be rectified in the future, meaning probably never),
3) it cost a frightening amount of money
My attempts at making suggestions to achieve expansion from the foundation we previously had, as opposed to devolution in terms of application, were met with allusions to “resistance to change”, when in fact, the nature of my objections was “Nice eye-candy, where’s the meat?” or where was the substance to assist analysts in better doing their jobs.
Another valid example, when faced with various problems during a reliability audit done under another company’s auditing process (or lack thereof), was to ask whether the process had been the subject of an FMEA (Failure Modes & Effects Analysis). After all, if you sell the science, the execution and the mindset, you should be interested in applying all of the previous to your own product, whether physical or service oriented.
In the previous statement, my “or lack thereof” was unfair, and of the naysayer contrariness type: in all fairness, they did have a process, but the process should have been accompanied by clear directives and guidelines as to “do’s and dont’s”. The process should have benefitted from strong warnings against allowing corporate tag-alongs during execution. My suggestion that an FMEA would clearly have established problems with such a practice came from obvious hurdles such as the reluctance of audit interview participants to formulate their answers in the presence of a corporate representative.
Opposing views leads to (minor) confrontation, and people are increasingly uncomfortable with disagreement or argumentation. Yet, out of the clashes of ideas are born the better or even best solutions. HBR (Harvard Business Review) and other management article sources state that the increasing disappearance of differing opinion hurts business.
For the well-meaning contrarian, perhaps the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
© 2009 by François Gagnon