Very well written article, with valuable insight to go into the root of the problem. I think as people are moving on at similar capacity (learning the same stuffs), everyone is equally qualified. It is alot of indifferences nowadays & yea, terming it as resistance is usually an understatement to intentionally differentiate the people at different level of management. To me this is pointless; what is will become, what isn’t will never be.

Going forward, authentic leadership will be important, people that address the ‘true’ issues, of which sometimes is about themselve & their own mistake & shortcomings..

Without the courage to identify that ourselves can sometimes be the problem, things cannot change easily. Your statement on setting the perception of who is the teacher or student, change agent or resistor is indeed the very wrong start that utimately crippled the entire communication system required for successful change.

To start wrongly.. even with the smallest variance can have a very different set of outcome. chaos theory.

I love your point number 1. “Whenever you are confronted with resistance, you should realize that you are the one who perceived and labeled the behavior and the person(s) as resistant in the first place. Perception is everything!”

I’ve been writing a series of posts saying the same thing about assessing employee potential for succession planning and development planning.

Putting managers in charge of assessing potential results in a distorted perception of employee capability because managers are too close to the situation. This is why I have been arguing that managers-once-removed must be accountable for assessing potential.

See: http://www.missionmindedmanagement.com/succession-management-whose-eyes-are-focused-on-talent

Regards,

Michelle Malay Carter

That’s a clever and fun way to get people on the right track when thinking about changes…

Keep writing!