Causes of Resistance

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En provenance du cours de Copenhagen Business School

Strategy Implementation

506 notes

Copenhagen Business School

Strategy Implementation

506 notes

Cours 3 sur 4 dans Specialization Strategic Management and Innovation

Even a thoroughly developed business strategy may fail if you don't pay enough attention to its implementation. This rings particularly true with strategies based on innovation or implemented in complex or fast-changing environments. In the 20th century successful implementation leveraged stability and typically proceeded through hierarchy and control. Today the key is to stay vibrant and able to quickly respond to trends in competition and technology while not losing sight of the strategic objective. In this course we'll build a toolbox of techniques to execute today's business strategies to help them succeed. After completing this course, you'll be able to: - Create objectives and goals to guide strategy implementation - Identify organizational structures that fit particular strategies - Understand how to leverage company culture in implementation - Describe how to communicate the strategy so that the organization "gets" it - Detect and mitigate risks to implementation

À partir de la leçon

Managing Resistance and Other Implementation Risks

Strategy implementation is rarely an exercise in certainty. New strategies may cause concerns or resistance in the organization, or be vulnerable to other risks. In this module we explore ways to manage risks to implementation, including addressing specific causes of resistance to change.

Lesson 1 Intro0:43

Causes of Resistance3:56

Managing Resistance4:10

Models for Implementing a New Initiative2:52

Rencontrer les enseignants

Nicolai Pogrebnyakov
Associate Professor
Department of International Economics and Management

A new strategy or initiative may cause resistance within individuals.

And remember that it's ultimately people who may resist change.

For example, some employees might be afraid that the new strategy would bring

about poor results.

Or they're uncertain how the strategy would be implemented, and

how that implementation will affect them.

Employees might also not trust managers even when these managers say that

everything will be fine.

But changes to some aspects of the organization can also cause resistance

at the organizational level.

For example, changes that affect power centers and informal networks.

Changes to mechanistic types of organizational structures,

which are geared toward stability and formality,

as you remember, these can produce resistance.

If the organization's norms and values its culture, values stability,

and the new initiative will disrupt it, that might cause resistance too.

After all, many companies are optimized for operating efficiently, and for

them, changes might be unnatural.

The word resistance has a negative connotation, and

we often understand it as something to be suppressed.

But what we've been discussing so far for

the most part doesn't lead to that conclusion.

Resistance, in fact, can be rational and it actually can be productive.

Lower level managers and employees might have legitimate concerns about the new

strategy, which is proposed by the top management.

Let's take a look at some examples of such concerns.

Lower level managers may not see the problem that the new strategy or

initiative is claiming to address.

There's no agreement in the problem.

Is this really the problem, they might ask.

For example,

in 1980s, Intel's member products were losing the market to Japanese competitors.

And the CEO in the group spent a year convincing managers that the company had

to exit that market and focus on processors.

These managers refused to see the problem,

even if they see the problem they might not own that problem.

If the company's sales are declining the product development team may say that it's

because of the sales team which doesn't put in enough effort.

The sales department may reply that on their end everything is fine, and

the product themselves are to blame.

If they do say the problem,

they may be skeptical about the proposed solution to that problem.

Whether your initiative will really solve the problem.

Suppose now that they agree, that yes, there is a problem, and yes,

your initiative should address it.

But from where they sit,

they may see that the initiative may bring about undesirable side effects.

And these side effects should at least be evaluated.

Another issue with the proposed solution might be that it's difficult to

actually implement.

Even though the initiative may be sound in theory,

there might be obstacles that would block it, or hinder its implementation.

Finally, even if you managed to convince everyone on the issue that

we just spoke about, everyone agrees that yes, there is a problem.

The strategy you suggested will fix the problem, and

there are no major obstacles or side effects in the implementation plan.

Even when everybody agrees, things may still not get done.

There might be a lack of follow through after the agreement.

We can group these causes into three groups.

Resistance can be caused by one, the lack of agreement on the problem.

Two, a lack of agreement on the way to solve that problem.

Or three, a lack of action.

As you see, the so called resistors might actually have quite valid concerns.

And, by addressing these concerns you will likely increase the chances of success

of implementation.

So, if you encounter resistance,

it might be a good idea to understand who is resisting and why.

Talk to them.

And possibly take corrective action.

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