More Evidence on the Good Nature of Resistance

January 13, 2008 - Luc Galoppin

This week I came across an article by Alain Vas, professor at the Louvain School of Management in La Libre Entreprise (i.e. the business section of a Belgian newspaper published in French). Professor Vas – like most professors – starts off by analyzing the origins of the word ‘resistance’.

Apparently the original Latin word ‘resistere’ signifies ‘to stop’ or ‘to oppose against’. When we look at what it means in physics, resistance refers to the force that opposes motion. On the other hand, the resistance of a material against an external influence, the resistance of a human body against a disease, and even the resistance in the Second World War are uses of the term that describe quality, health and guts; three terms that I would label as positive.

Then why is it that resistance in the context of an organizational change program is negative? As I have stated before, a common misunderstanding about resistance is that it is a phenomenon that gets in the way, something to avoid, something to prevent, etc. The belief that resistance is a bad thing is caused by the fact that the emotion is interpreted as negative and the energy is mostly directed against the change (at least: that is what we think!).

The truth is that resistance against an organizational change is an authentic reaction of people that communicates: “I CARE ABOUT THIS AND THEREFORE I REACT”. In the above drawing I have demonstrated what I mean with ‘authentic’. The vertical axis describes the intention we have inside of us and horizontal axis describes the behavior that we demonstrate on the outside. Resistance – like commitment – is an energy source because the outside behavior is in sync with the intent inside of us. For a more detailed explanation of the drawing I would like to refer to the following related articles:

As for the meaning of resistance in the context of organizational change, let’s agree we give it the connotation that it deserves from now on, shall we?

  • I really like your point, have made it myself often to clients, and have only a minor quibble. Too often when organizational behavior gets discussed, the workplaces being talked about all seem to have only mature, sincere professionals and “knowledge workers” who think about what they think, and have ideas about what’s happening.

    Many of the workplaces I’ve consulted to are much more elemental than that, and therefore it’s not beyond reason to find that some resistance is – in fact – aggression, hostility, anxiety, inertia, jealousy, resentment, mean spiritedness, etc.

    The point is that it’s laughable and pretty obtuse to assume that there’s no valuable information to be gleaned from resistance, and very important to validate that good faith resistance by people invested in the success of the organization can be chock full wisdom. Can be.

    It isn’t always, though

  • I really like your point, have made it myself often to clients, and have only a minor quibble. Too often when organizational behavior gets discussed, the workplaces being talked about all seem to have only mature, sincere professionals and “knowledge workers” who think about what they think, and have ideas about what’s happening.

    Many of the workplaces I’ve consulted to are much more elemental than that, and therefore it’s not beyond reason to find that some resistance is – in fact – aggression, hostility, anxiety, inertia, jealousy, resentment, mean spiritedness, etc.

    The point is that it’s laughable and pretty obtuse to assume that there’s no valuable information to be gleaned from resistance, and very important to validate that good faith resistance by people invested in the success of the organization can be chock full wisdom. Can be.

    It isn’t always, though

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