Resistance to organizational change. What is resistance to change and how to work with it

When implementing organizational changes, any enterprise faces resistance. This resistance can be of a varied nature, but in any case it reduces the effectiveness of the implementation of changes, their pace, and in some cases can make it impossible to implement them. There is nothing surprising in such resistance, much less pathological: most people are afraid of revolutionary disruptions to their usual way of life, and also have their own ideas about how to implement the strategy. Groups faced with the need for change are faced with the fact that informal connections, communication channels, and behavioral stereotypes will become different. Consequently, they easily respond to calls for resistance to change. Such resistance on the part of individuals and groups can be a single, but powerful, restraining force. The threat from this force depends on various reasons, but the main ones are the structure and culture of the Roy O.M. organization. Modern management. Basic functions and methods. Lecture course. - Omsk, 2001. - 347 p. .

Resistance is explicit or implicit opposition to the changes taking place in the company, which can sometimes be so strong that it cannot be overcome. As Newton’s third law states, if there is an action, there is also a reaction. Markova V.D., Kuznetsova S.A. Strategic management. - M., 2012. - 320 s..

Resistance to change is understood as any actions of employees aimed at discrediting, delaying or opposing the implementation of changes in the labor process Newstrom D., Davis K. Organizational behavior. /Newstrom D. Davis K./ M.: Master 2009 - p.347..

Table 1 shows signs of organizational resistance. These and similar statements can be heard in an organization implementing change. organizational management control resistance

Table 1 - Signs of organizational resistance A.N. Lyukshinov Strategic management / A.N. Lyukshinov - Moscow, 2000 - 375 pp., p. 180.

Statements typical of resistance to change in an organization	The essence of the statement
* Patience and a little effort
* Let's get started new life from Monday	Procrastination
* Don't play the game	Uncertainty
* A new cry broke the paralysis	Lack of implementation
* The more paint we spend (on slogans), the less we believe in fairy tales	Strategic inefficiency
* What the boss doesn’t know, he doesn’t suffer from.
*Let's get back to the real work!	Retreat

When describing resistance to change, first of all, there are two forms of resistance depending on its strength and intensity: passive and active.

Forms of passive resistance (inaction) can be:

· persistent public expressions of concerns about new ideas and the favorable outcome of reforms; their criticism; denial of the need for change in general;
· delaying, under various pretexts, making appropriate decisions and starting active actions;
· hiding or ignoring information about the benefits of changes;
· formal use of new working methods.

Active resistance can consist of the following actions:

· issuing false information;
· linking the start of work in a new way with certain conditions;
· setting unclear goals, issuing deliberately erroneous, vague orders;
· refusal to teach it to others and to improve one’s own qualifications;
· introduction of a disincentive model of remuneration for participants;
· isolation of supporters of change;
· violation of instructions, open resistance;
· diversion of resources for other purposes, their dispersion;
· artificially creating an environment of confusion, vanity, sabotage;
· intrigues aimed at splitting the team Vesnin V.R. Personnel Management. Theory and practice / V.R. Vesnin - M., 2009 - 517 pp..

Depending on whether employees express resistance in an active or passive form, it is necessary to choose methods to reduce it. Employees who are actively resisting will pose a particular problem; they need to be given the most attention.

Researchers identify three main types of resistance to change that influence the formation of a negative attitude of employees towards change: logical, psychological, sociological resistance (see Table 2).

Logical resistance means employee disagreement with facts, rational arguments, and logic. It arises from the real time and effort required to adapt to change, including mastering new responsibilities. These are real costs that employees bear, even though in the long term, we are talking about changes that are favorable to them, which means that management needs to compensate them one way or another. Newstrom D., Davis K. Organizational Behavior. /Newstrom D. Davis K./ M.: Master 2009 - P.348..

Psychological resistance is usually based on emotions, feelings and attitudes. Psychological resistance is internally “logical” from the point of view of the employee’s attitudes and feelings about change.

Employees may fear the unknown, mistrust managers, or feel their safety or self-worth is threatened. Even if managers consider such feelings unjustified, they are very real, which means that the manager must take them into account.

Sociological resistance is the result of the challenge that changes pose to group interests, norms, and values. Since public interests (political coalitions, the values of trade unions and various communities) are a very significant factor in the external environment, management must carefully consider the attitude of various coalitions and groups to change.

Table 2 - Types of resistance shown by employees

Types of resistance	Factors of resistance
Logical, rational objections	Time required for adaptation Possibility of creating undesirable conditions, such as downgrading Economic Costs of Change The technical feasibility of the changes is questionable
Psychological, emotional attitudes	Fear of the unknown Inability to adapt to change Adaptation to management or other change agents
Sociological factors, group interests	Political coalitions Supporting group values Local limited interests

Resistance to change is not accidental. Its common causes are the following:

1. Inertia, the desire to function as usual (the main inhibitor of change), to stability, to which all elements of the control mechanism, rules, standards and others are subordinated.
2. The interconnectedness of all subjects of the organization, restraining each other.
3. Psychological rejection by people, the main reasons for which can be combined into several groups: economic, political, organizational, personal, social. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

Economic ones are associated with the potential loss of income or its sources (due to deprivation of work, benefits and privileges; reduction of working hours, intensification of work), as well as with high costs (time and money) for carrying out the transformations themselves.

Political ones consist of a reluctance to change the current balance of power, to jeopardize the fate of an informal organization (which is usually inevitable when carrying out strategic changes), and others.

Organizational reasons are:

Possibility of weakening individual elements the organization or it as a whole, loss of its controllability;
· inconveniences associated with working in a new way;
· contradictions between new mechanisms and traditional methods of work;
· lack of sufficient motivation.

Personal reasons are determined by the psychological characteristics of people:

· habit of the old (a person generally does not like it when the normal course of events is disrupted);
· fear of the new, unknown;
· fear of showing incompetence;
· lack of confidence in one’s own strengths, the ability to master new types of activities (many in such situations lose flexibility of thinking and become aggressive);
· awareness of a threat to a position, career, personal power, status, position in the organization, respect for management and colleagues;
· reluctance to disrupt the usual way of life, overcome difficulties, take on additional responsibilities, and work independently.

Social reasons resistance is characteristic not only of individual members of the organization or their groups, but also of the entire team as a whole. Here you can name:

· desire for social stability, lack of conviction in the need for change;
· desire to preserve the “good old” orders and traditions; poor awareness of their goals, expected benefits and possible losses;
· dissatisfaction with methods of implementation, imposition, surprise; distrust of change initiators;
· confidence that the latter occur solely in the interests of management;
threat of destruction of existing organizational culture, values, formation of an unfavorable moral and psychological climate Vesnin R.V. Personnel management / R.V. Vesnin - M.; 2009..

American researchers J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger proposed a systematization of the causes of resistance and reactions to them. The main results of their research are presented in Table 3.

Table 3 - Reasons for resistance to change Lapygin Yu.N. Strategic management / Yu.N. Lapygin - M.; 2009.- 236 p.

	Result
Selfish interest	Expectation of personal loss of something valuable as a result of change	"Political" behavior
Misunderstanding of strategy goals	Low degree of trust in managers laying out a change plan
Different assessments of the consequences of implementing the strategy	Inadequate perception of plans; possibility of existence of other sources of information	Open disagreement
Low tolerance for change	People fear that they do not have the necessary skills and abilities	Behavior aimed at maintaining one's own prestige

Let's look at the data given in the table in more detail.

Selfish interest is the main reason why people resist change at the organizational level. This is due to one or another measure of selfishness, inherent in every person: people, by virtue of their human nature, put their own interests above the interests of the organization. Such behavior, due to its universality and naturalness, is not very dangerous, but its development can lead to the emergence of informal groups whose policy will be aimed at ensuring that the proposed change cannot be implemented.

Misunderstanding of the goals of a strategy usually occurs because people are unable to appreciate the consequences of implementing the strategy. The reason is often a lack of sufficient awareness regarding the goals and ways of implementing the strategy. This situation is typical for organizations where the degree of trust in managers is low.

Different assessments of the consequences of strategy implementation are associated with ambiguous perceptions of strategic goals and plans. Managers and employees may have different perceptions of the meaning of strategy, both for the organization and for intra-organizational groups. At the same time, “strategists” often believe that employees see the benefits of implementing the strategy as much as they do, and that everyone has the appropriate information to be convinced of the benefits, both for the organization and for each employee, from implementing the strategy.

Some people have a low tolerance for change due to fear that they will not be able to learn the required new skills or new job. Such resistance is most typical for cases of introduction of new technologies, new sales methods, new reporting forms, etc.

Reaction to resistance may vary. Managers often encounter behavior that appears to them to be resistance to strategy implementation. In this case, it is necessary to understand various options and the nuances of this phenomenon. To understand how to respond to resistance, it is helpful to identify forms of resistance at the following levels:

· organizational level
· group level
· individual level

Understanding at what level resistance occurs and how it is characterized allows the manager to direct efforts to in the right direction. Each of these levels has its own characteristics of resistance and its own methods of influence in order to reduce resistance.

The organizational level implies the presence of organizational barriers. Examples of these are:

· inertia of complex organizational structures, difficulty in reorienting thinking due to existing social norms;
· interdependence of subsystems, leading to the fact that one “unsynchronized” change slows down the implementation of the entire project;
· resistance to the transfer of privileges to certain groups and possible changes in the existing “balance of power”;
· past negative experiences associated with change projects;
· resistance to transformation processes imposed by consultants from outside.

At this level, structural and cultural factors may contribute to widespread resistance: either legacy systems are unable to cope with rapid and radical strategic change, or, for example, aggressive marketing strategies are perceived as unacceptable by public opinion. The existing structure and culture cannot quickly adapt to new strategic requirements and change. This is due to the fact that cultural and structural changes are possible only over a long period of time and require large expenditures of human resources. Barinov V.A., Kharchenko V.L. Strategic management. - M.; 2009. - 237s. .

The group level presupposes the presence of formal (administrations, departments, etc.) and informal (groups of “veterans,” “trade unions,” etc.) groups. This level also has some features:

· providing the group with information directly related to the problem;
· achieving a common understanding of the need for change by all group members;
· a sense of belonging to a group and initiation of changes within the group;
· the authority of the group for its members (the more authoritative the group is for its members, the greater the influence it can have on them);
· support for changes by the group leader (maintaining psychological significance for individual members);
· awareness of all group members.

A situation often arises in an organization when employees who have completed a training program and are inspired by new views, enriched by best practices, after some time lose common ground with their colleagues, begin to be rejected, or, of course, do not abandon their innovations. A group always requires behavior close to average from its members; only a leader or a “fool” can allow deviant behavior. The biggest challenge is creating a new way of collective behavior. In such a case, one of the options for overcoming resistance to the new could be training the entire unit at the same time, for example, in the organization itself.

When designing the implementation of a strategy, it is necessary to keep in mind that the corporation as a system includes not only formal groups (divisions, departments, sectors, etc.), but also informal ones, for example, groups of “veterans” of the organization or active Internet users. Widespread communication of the strategic intent and consultation before implementing a strategy (ideally at the planning stage) can help reduce resistance from groups and identify what people really care about about a proposed strategy. This may require the transfer (by way of feedback) of the results of organizational diagnostics to those divisions and groups of the organization that are directly affected by the strategic change; holding seminars and discussions in which the group would participate; organizing a new information network so that everyone can know what is happening and have the opportunity to express their doubts. Attracting members of influential and authoritative informal groups in the organization to one’s side has a positive impact. Volkogonova O.D., Zub A.T. Strategic management. - M.; 2008. - 256s..

Resistance to change at the individual level can be three types: logical, psychological, sociological. These types have been discussed in more detail above.

At the individual level, the following barriers are identified:

· fear of the unknown, when preference is given to the familiar;
· the need for guarantees, especially when one’s own workplace;
· denial of the need for change and fear of obvious losses (for example, maintaining the same wages while increasing labor costs);
· threat to existing conditions in the old workplace social relations;
· lack of involvement in the transformation of persons affected by the changes;
· lack of resources and time due to operational work, which slows down changes that cannot be implemented “in the meantime.”

Formal and informal groups to which employees who hold certain views regarding strategy belong decisively influence the position of the individual - a member of the group, which he will occupy and defend when designing and implementing strategic changes. However, if the reference group (that is, one whose norms and values the individual shares) supports the prospect of change, some employees may harbor personal concerns about the impact of the change on their future position in the organization, career opportunities, aspirations and promotion prospects. according to service.

To help an employee gain a new understanding of what is happening and reconsider his attitude towards change, it is most often necessary individual work with him to explain the benefits and advantages that he personally will receive as a result of implementing the strategy. Such work should lead to a change in employee behavior.

A properly organized clarification procedure presupposes a clear understanding by the manager of what exactly he is trying to change in the views of a particular employee and why this is necessary. Attempts to force someone to change in themselves what is initially inherent in their character, are the properties of their personality, are doomed to failure. Situations may arise when a manager will need to deal with resistance to change using methods that are in conflict with established relationships between employees and production practices. In such cases, the problem may not simply be resistance at the individual or group level, such situations force one to question whether this strategy is appropriate for the organization.

Clearly identifiable resistance to implementing a change strategy is not very common. Much more often there is a need to deal with potential conflicts and “dead ends” at all levels. They arise due to the fact that different groups try to defend their own interests, using the process of change itself for these purposes. Managers must be wary of varying responses to change and apparent resistance. The origins of an individual employee's resistance may be at the organizational, group, or individual level. It is also important to examine the extent to which resistance is directly related to change. Perhaps it is simply a way of expressing other conflicts and tensions; the situation must be assessed taking all factors into account.

The consequences of resistance to change are expressed in a decrease in the effectiveness of the implementation of changes, their pace, and in some cases makes it impossible to implement them. However, the presence of potential benefits of resistance should be waived. In certain cases, resistance to change leads to management carefully analyzing the proposed plans again and again, assessing their adequacy to the real situation. Thus, workers act as part of a system to control the reality of plans and maintain balance. If justified employee resistance forces management to more carefully consider proposed changes, the possible negative reaction of employees will continue to act as a deterrent to ill-conceived decisions.

Resistance can help identify specific problem areas where making changes will be difficult, allowing management to take corrective action before serious problems arise. Possibly, negative reactions from employees will encourage managers to explain the need for change, which will have a positive effect on the implementation of changes in the long term. In addition, the level of resistance allows management to obtain information about employees’ attitudes on a particular issue, allows employees to “throw out” emotions and encourages them to understand the essence of changes.

Resistance to change- these are any actions of employees aimed at discrediting, delaying or opposing the implementation of changes in the labor process.

Often employees resist change for no apparent reason. Effective change management requires management to identify counteracting factors and the ability to apply methods to involve employees in the change process.

The reaction of employees to changes in the work process is complex and prevents them from directly adapting to the changes. First of all, changes affect the attitudes of each employee and cause certain reactions determined by attitude towards changes. One type of psychological protective mechanisms is stereotypes, preventing the correct perception of innovations. The forms of these stereotypes are such that they can provide their bearers with invulnerability from public opinion. In the process of change, there are delays in the start of the change process; unforeseen delays in implementation of the solution and other difficulties that slow down the change process and increase costs; attempts to sabotage changes within the organization or “drown” them in the stream of other priority matters. Stereotypes of perception include several variations on the theme “yes, but...” and were analyzed by A. I. Prigogine (1989). Let's list some of them:

“we already have this”: An example is given that is somewhat similar to the proposed change. The party proposing the change has to prove the significance of the differences between it and what has already been implemented in the organization;

“We won’t be able to do this”: a whole list of factors is given that do not even allow us to hope for a positive result when introducing a change;

“this does not solve our main problems”: since there may be several points of view on the main problems, the change may be assessed as inadequate to the problems of the organization;

“this needs improvement”: the change is assessed as “raw” and rejected;

“not everything is equal here”: one of the very ancient and proven methods of polemics, in which some essential points are separated from the proposed change, without which it loses all meaning;

“there are other proposals”: the party proposing the change is placed in obviously unfavorable conditions of competition with other initiators of change and is forced to sort things out with them.

Often, in an effort to maintain balance, the group makes attempts, regardless of the changes that occur, to keep attitudes and assessments intact by any means. Consequently, every external influence causes opposition within the group. Thus, each group is a self-correcting mechanism, the task of which is to restore balance at the slightest threat of change. This characteristic organizations was named homeostasis.

Let's list a few more typical phrases:

"patience and a little effort"(refusal to change);

“let’s start a new life on Monday”(postponing “for later”);

"wouldn't play the game"(uncertainty);

“a new cry broke the paralysis”(lack of implementation);

“The more paint we waste, the less we believe in fairy tales”(strategic ineffectiveness);

“What the boss doesn’t know, he doesn’t suffer from”(sabotage);

"let's get back to real work"(retreat).

Types of resistance organizational changes. In order to understand the reasons why people have difficulty accepting change, it is necessary to examine the types of resistance to change in the organization.

There are three main types of resistance to change that influence the formation of a negative attitude of employees towards change.

Logic resistance- means disagreement of employees with facts, rational arguments, logic. Occurs due to the real time and effort required to adapt to changes, including mastering new job responsibilities. These are real costs that employees bear, even though in the long term we are talking about changes that are favorable to them, which means that management needs to compensate them one way or another.

Psychological resistance- usually based on emotions, feelings and attitudes. Is internally “logical” from the point of view of the employee’s attitudes and feelings about change. Employees may be afraid of the unknown, distrust managers, and feel a threat to their safety. Even if a manager believes such feelings are unjustified, they are very real, which means he must take them into account.

Sociological resistance- the result of the challenge that change poses to group interests, norms, and values. Since public interests (political coalitions, the values of trade unions and various communities) are a very significant factor in the external environment, management must carefully consider the attitude of various coalitions and groups to change. At the small group level, change jeopardizes the values of friendships and the statuses of team members.

Carrying out changes presupposes that management has prepared to overcome all three types of resistance, especially since its psychological and sociological forms are not something irrational and illogical, but, on the contrary, correspond to the logic of different value systems. In specific work situations, moderate support for change or opposition is most likely. The task of management is to create an environment of trust in management’s proposals, ensuring a positive perception by employees of most changes and a sense of security. Otherwise, management is forced to use power, too frequent use of which is fraught with their “exhaustion.”

The threat of change may be real or imagined, direct or indirect, significant or insignificant. Regardless of the nature of the change, employees seek to protect themselves from its consequences by using complaints, passive resistance, which can develop into unauthorized absence from the workplace, sabotage and a decrease in work intensity.

Reasons resistance may be threats to employees' needs for safety, social relationships, status, competence, or self-esteem.

The main reason for resistance to change is the psychological costs associated with it. Both the company's top executives and line managers may resist changes, but gradually, as new benefits are perceived, this opposition may fade away. Of course, not all changes encounter resistance from employees; some of them are perceived in advance as desirable; other changes may be so slight and imperceptible that resistance, if any, will be very weak. Managers must realize that attitudes toward change are determined primarily by how well the organization's managers have minimized inevitable resistance.

Changes and the feeling of threat emanating from them can trigger the emergence of chain reaction effect, those. situations where a change directly affecting an individual or a small group of people leads to a direct or indirect reaction of many due to the fact that they are all interested in one or another development of events.

Reasons for resistance to change are usually:

employees feeling discomfort caused by the very nature of the change, when employees show uncertainty about the correctness of the technical decisions being made and negatively perceive the uncertainty that has arisen;

fear of the unknown, threat to the safety of their work;

methods for making changes, when employees are dissatisfied with the restriction of information and do not accept an authoritarian approach that does not involve their participation in implementing changes;

employees' feeling of injustice, caused by the fact that someone else benefits from the changes they make;

feeling that change will lead to personal losses, those. lesser degree of satisfaction of any need. Thus, workers may decide that innovations in technology and high levels of automation will lead to layoffs or disruption of social relations, reducing their decision-making power, formal and informal power, access to information, autonomy and attractiveness of the work assigned to them.

When a corporation Mesa Oil tried to swallow Phillips Petroleum employees of the latter began a campaign to prevent the impending merger, because they were confident that the transfer of power would threaten financial losses. The resistance was so strong that the deal fell through;

the belief that change is not necessary or desirable for the organization. Thus, a manager may decide that a proposed automated management information system is too complex for users or that it will produce the wrong type of information; he may also decide that the problem affects not only his functional area, but also another - so let them make changes in that department.

Thus, when starting to implement the planned changes in the work of the team, the leader must first determine whether they will cause resistance, what kind of resistance it will be and how to change his line of behavior in order to overcome or eliminate it. Experience shows that most often employee resistance to innovation occurs in cases where:

1) the goals of the changes are not explained to people. Mystery and ambiguity always create uncertainty and anxiety. Fear of the unknown can make employees hostile to something new just as much as the nature of the new thing. In general, people resist general reforms much more than frequent changes in the work process;

2) employees themselves did not take part in planning these changes. People tend to support any reforms if they took part in their preparation - after all, everyone is ready to follow their own recommendations;

3) reforms are motivated by personal reasons. Thus, a manager who asks to help an employee process documents can be sure that others will immediately have questions about what this employee will benefit and why he should be helped. Solidarity is a wonderful trait, but only a few are able to give up something personally and agree to innovations because of this feeling. People need to make sure that this really helps solve the problem, achieve the desired goal, and that it also benefits them;

4) the traditions of the team and their usual style and mode of work are ignored. Many other formal and informal groups will stubbornly resist innovations that threaten their familiar relationships;

5) it seems to subordinates that a mistake was made in preparing the reforms. This feeling is especially intensified if people suspect that there is a threat of a pay cut, demotion, or loss of favor with the manager;

6) perestroika threatens subordinates with a sharp increase in the volume of work. A similar threat arises if the manager did not bother to plan changes far enough in advance;

7) it seems to people that everything is fine as it is (“No need to stick your neck out,” “Why expose your neck to the blow,” “Things have never gone so well for us,” “Initiative is punishable,” etc.);

8) the initiator of reforms is not respected and has no authority. Unfortunately, antipathy towards the author of the project is unconsciously transferred to his proposals, regardless of their true value;

9) when planning reforms, the team does not see the final result (what will this give to the team?);

10) the employee does not know what his personal benefit will be;

11) the subordinate does not feel confident or convinced by the leader;

12) reforms are proposed and implemented in a categorical form, using administrative methods;

13) innovation may lead to staff reductions;

14) people believe that changes can lead to violations of the principle of social justice;

15) the team does not know how much it will cost (costs, effort);

16) the reform does not bring quick results;

17) reforms will bring benefits to a narrow circle of people;

18) the progress of the reform is rarely discussed in the team;

19) there is no atmosphere of trust in the team;

20) under the guise of reform, they actually offer the old, which has not justified itself;

21) within the team there are powerful groups of people who are satisfied with the old, current situation (group egoism);

22) unsuccessful examples of such reform are known;

23) the informal leader of the team is opposed to change.

It is also necessary to talk about the advantages of resistance to change. IN certain situations it leads to management once again carefully analyzing the proposed plans, assessing their adequacy to the real situation. Workers act as part of a system to control the reality of plans and maintain balance. Resistance can help identify specific problem areas, provide the manager with information about employees' attitudes on certain issues, and provide employees with an opportunity to vent emotions and encourage them to understand the nature of change.

Many organizations do not change at all over time and under the influence of external circumstances and thereby actually contribute to their own destruction. This happens even in those organizations in which the need for change is obvious even to outside observers. This makes us think that there is some psychological factor in the nature of organizations and individuals that makes such sharp turns difficult - resistance to change.

Often resistance to change comes from people needing to break old habits and learn to do things in new ways. To do this, they need different norms and values. But in this process, they often find that their status and power in the organization are assessed differently. These changes lead to the eternal conflict between the human desire for constancy and the search for the new. Resistance is the first reaction to change because people need time to evaluate the costs and benefits of change for themselves. For this reason, new management initiatives often cause conflicting reactions among subordinates.

Reasons for employee resistance to change American psychologists N. Tichy and M. Devanna analyzed it according to the “technology - politics - culture” scheme.

Technical reasons for resistance to change

The three main technical reasons for resistance to change are:

Habits and inertia. They cause resistance, which is associated with solving individual problems. It is for technical reasons that it is very difficult for people who have done things one way to change their behavior.
Fear of the unknown or the difficulty of predicting the development of an organization. Ignorance of the future or difficulties in predicting it cause anxiety and, consequently, resistance among many employees. When, for example, computers are introduced to middle management and to solve special problems, employees who have worked successfully under another system tend to resist such changes.
Declining costs. Even though they recognize the potential benefits of change, many organizations are often unable to do so because of the calming effects of falling costs and the old way of doing things.

Political reasons for resistance to change

There are three main reasons for this resistance:

Threat to powerful coalitions. The common threat is the conflict between the old and new guards.
Zero-sum decision making due to limited resources. When planning changes, decisions must always be made about who will receive more financial and material resources and who will receive less. The CEOs of most companies are calling for greater productivity and innovation with lower costs and overhead. These zero-sum games are more difficult to implement politically, which in turn leads to greater resistance to change.
Blaming leaders for past problems. Perhaps the main resistance to change arises from the fact that leaders need to think critically about their past decisions and behavior in order to implement new changes. Psychologically, it is very difficult for people to change if they feel their own responsibility for the problems that they are now trying to solve. In this sense, it is much easier to come from outside.

Cultural reasons for resistance to change

Cultural filters on the path of selective perception. Organizational culture promotes certain values that make it difficult for members of the organization to do things differently. It defines how people perceive what is possible. One of the crude ways of differentiating people is to divide them into “hard-headed”, incapable of change, and those who are more receptive, able to learn to behave in a new way, to act effectively in a different environment.
A throwback to the good old days. We often feel more secure by returning to the past. Transformations require a break from business as usual, so resistance arises.
Lack of climate for change. Organizations often differ in their climate for change. Where conformity flourishes, there is often a simultaneous lack of receptivity to change. Most of the large corporations are no exception in this regard. Leaders of reorganizations must take this into account and provide conditions for the formation of an appropriate climate.

One of the first tasks for turnaround leaders is to identify those members of their management team who can meet the new demands and those who cannot. Here, studying values, discussing them, as well as analyzing those requirements that need to be changed can be useful. Managers have the opportunity to analyze all aspects of the existing culture that resist organizational change and can also develop methods to incorporate new values that accelerate change.

In relation to any social change Large individual differences always appear, both between people and between different groups. But behind this variety of manifestations one can see the repeating, the typical. Soviet psychologist A.L. Zhuravlev proposed to distinguish different socio-economic types of people according to their attitude to organizational and economic innovations, depending on the intensity of the manifestation of three psychological components:

psychological readiness for innovation (motivational component),
preparedness for life in new conditions (knowledge, abilities, skills, experience, etc.)
real activity (actions, deeds, activities).

Different combinations of desires, knowledge and actions make it possible to divide people into the following socio-psychological types (the names are arbitrary):

“active reformers” (they want economic changes, know how to work in new conditions and are actively involved in reforms);
“passive reformers” (they are willing, able, but do not act);
“passively-positively related to innovations” (mostly they want changes, but do not know how and do not act);
“overcoming themselves” (they can and act, but do not want changes);
“ineffective” (they want and act, but do not know how);
“waiting” (they know how, but do not want and do not act);
“blind implementers” (no expressed desire, do not know how, but act towards changes with the help of others);
“passive opponents” (do not want, do not know how and do not act);
“active opponents” (do not want, do not know how and actively resist changes).

The reasons for resistance to change mainly stem from the basic premises noted in the previous paragraph - violation established order and threats to the personal interests of workers. Consider Diversity possible reasons rejection and opposition to innovations on the part of the organization’s employees.

1. A planned transformation always requires additional efforts from the employees affected by it. For example, you need to abandon the old method of work and learn a new one or learn how to work on new equipment. Even if, after introducing the innovation, it becomes easier and more convenient for the employee to do his job, the transition process itself requires some effort, time, and sometimes nerve-wracking. In addition, when adapting to new conditions, work becomes more difficult than before. Developing a new skill takes time and patience.
2. Most often, the employee does not know what the consequences of the changes will be for him personally. Even when he receives sufficient information about the innovation, he is still not sure that he personally will be able to easily master new techniques and methods of work and cope with new tasks on the job. high level. As a result, he experiences some uncertainty and discomfort.
3. Feeling of loss and fear about the consequences of the transformation. When required to leave the usual path, a person usually experiences a feeling of loss. It seems to him that in the new conditions his professional and life experience, skills and abilities are becoming unnecessary. He may perceive change as a threat to his status. For example, a reduction in decision-making powers, deprivation of formal or informal power, deprivation of access to information, a decrease in independence in work, etc. In addition, it is obvious that transformations can have long-term consequences. Thus, a change in one element of the system, as a rule, affects other elements and the relationships between them. And the employee, realizing that everything is interconnected, expects secondary, derivative changes in the organization. As a result, the uncertainty of the consequences increases even more.
4. Lack of understanding of the situation as a whole. If a change is proposed without explaining why it is needed, what the overall plan of action is part of this particular innovation, and what it should lead to as a result, then employees usually do not have the desire to actively participate in its implementation.

The listed reasons are important for most workers, including active, proactive and highly professional ones. For passive workers, as well as for those who have little interest in the business or are guided by their narrow proprietary interests, there may be other reasons. For example, passive workers, in principle, do not want to learn anything new. They believe that what they are doing today is enough. Often this is a manifestation of ordinary laziness. The individual psychological stability of workers should also be taken into account. Disruption of the stability of the environment can plunge some of them into a state of stress.

An analysis of the reasons for rejection and opposition to innovation shows that all reasons can be divided into three groups: economic, social and psychological.

Economic the reasons for resistance to changes are based on the employee’s fear of a deterioration in his position in the organization and, as a consequence, loss of wages. The extreme case is job loss.

Social the reasons for resistance to change are related to the employee’s desire to maintain existing social connections, their status and role in the team, as well as with the fear of worsening the socio-psychological climate in the team, etc.

Psychological reasons are based, as a rule, on emotions, feelings and attitudes. To one of the psychological reasons for resistance to change in Russian organizations This could include, for example, the undeveloped motivation for achievement in many people. Its essence lies in the fact that a person’s orientation towards success is weaker than his orientation towards avoiding failure. This is partly a manifestation of the Russian mentality.

Mentality is a manifestation of the predominant way of activity, behavior and problem solving in a certain culture. Mentality determines the stereotype of perception and assessment of reality and is a behavioral self-regulator. In general, mentality is understood as a set of basic and fairly stable psychological guidelines, traditions, habits, life attitudes, patterns of behavior that are inherited from past generations and inherent in a given society, group, nation and a certain cultural tradition.

Manifestations of the Russian mentality are, for example, the blurring in people’s minds of the relationship between labor and the results of labor, communalism (collectivism, clustering), collective-egalitarian orientations, etc. These phenomena have very deep historical roots and influence the labor behavior of the employee.

Equalization in people's minds can be observed when an employee does not strive for primacy and does not want to stand out from the team. The team, in most cases, also does not welcome the competitive behavior of individual workers, because it threatens its integrity and cohesion. Thus, on the one hand, the team supports its members and provides them with a sense of security, on the other hand, it prevents the introduction of management methods based on competition and competitiveness. As a result, relationships aimed at maintaining a comfortable moral and psychological climate in the organization prevent individual employees from breaking out of the general ranks and striving for personal success, i.e. interfere with the development of achievement motivation. In such a situation, it is difficult to expect activity, initiative, or a desire to change, improve, or introduce innovations from employees. People with a failure-avoidance orientation tend to actively resist change and are reluctant to participate in it.

IN separate group It is possible to identify the reasons for the rejection of changes due to the disappointment of employees, their negative experience of previous attempts at transformation in the organization. As a result of negative experiences of employees, they become tired of constant changes and transformations; distrust of the initiators of change and the leadership of the organization; the belief that innovations will not bring anything good; reluctance to participate in the next experiment, etc.

Reasons that motivate employees to resist innovation activity, summarized in table. 9.2.

Table 9.2

Reasons for people's resistance to organizational change

Anti-innovation barriers

economic

character

personal

character

social

character

Fear of unemployment.
Fear of a reduction in working hours and, as a consequence, a decrease in earnings.
Fear of salary reduction.
Fear of intensification of labor and reduction of its progressive payment

Perceiving criticism of modern work methods as a personal grievance.
Fear that acquired skills will be unnecessary and professional pride will be harmed.
The belief that innovation always leads to increased specialization, increased monotony of work and a decreased sense of self-worth as a participant in the production process.
Reluctance to expend effort on retraining.
Fear of increasing labor intensity.
Fear of uncertainty caused by a lack of understanding of the essence and consequences of innovations

Reluctance to adapt to the new socio-psychological climate

a team.

The desire to maintain familiar social connections.
Fear that the new social attitude will lead to less job satisfaction.
Dislike of external interference in personal affairs

and to those introducing innovations.

Dissatisfaction with the weakness of personal participation and the insignificance of the personal role in the introduction of innovations.
Confidence that any innovations are beneficial to the company, and not to its employee, his colleagues or society

Thus, there are many different reasons for employee resistance to organizational change. They are caused by both the objective consequences of innovations and the subjective perception of the situation by employees, their personal concerns and fears.

Expert opinion

Most of our business organizations lack innovation. Interest in innovation is noticeable among many managers, and it often comes to the creation of promising projects. But their implementation is a streak of failures and disappointments. Information technologists, quality management specialists, and even the authors of the latest motivational systems constantly complain about low implementation - after all, it’s inexpensive and the effect is obvious, but somewhere in the middle everything goes to waste. Companies all over the world have the same pain point: there is a good innovation, the desired result is clear, but the transition from one to another is not possible. Transition! This is the central problem of innovation. This is where the source of hopes and losses is!

Why do organizations resist innovation? But what remains for them if their effectiveness directly depends on stability, when everything has been worked out, everything is familiar, there are no failures. But innovation disrupts stability. While learning something new, failures are inevitable. Or another problem: you start an important change, and it will pull the next ones along with it, and they will question something else, i.e. the volume of secondary and tertiary consequences may turn out to be unexpectedly large, much greater than expected. Worse at first! This is the law of innovation.

Prigozhin A.I. Disorganization: causes, types, overcoming. M.: Alpina Business Books, 2007. P. 138.

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Plan

Introduction

1. Theoretical basis managing resistance to change in organizations

1.1 Essence and types of organizational changes

1.2 Resistance to change: concept, types, causes, levels, forms, consequences

2. Methodological foundations for managing resistance to change

2.1 Resistance reduction methods

2.2 Programs for building commitment to organizational change

3. Practice of managing resistance to change and directions for its improvement

3.1 Analysis of draft changes to JSC KBHA

3.2 Suggestions for managing resistance to change

Conclusion

List of sources used

Introduction

Relevance of the topic. One of the main problems of managing a modern enterprise or organization is their rapid development and change in accordance with modern market principles of operation and the growing demands of society.

The organization and management of most enterprises does not meet the needs of not only the world, but also Russian market. Ineffective management leads to the fact that the enterprise finds itself in a crisis state of unprofitability or bankruptcy, which in turn slows down economic development country as a whole and complicates the struggle of Russian enterprises with foreign competitors.

At the same time, solving problems of development and change in organizations is important not only for unprofitable, but also for successful, dynamically developing enterprises. Currently, the process of introducing changes in enterprises and companies is becoming a new conceptual approach to management. In this regard, the processes of changes in the entire system of functioning of the enterprise and its organizational structure, including processes, people, consumers, as well as various models and methods for their practical implementation.

In practice and scientific research, more and more attention is paid to the analysis of methods and organizational capabilities of change management (“change management”). The concept of change management covers all planned, organized and controlled changes in the area of strategy, production processes, structures and cultures of any social - economic system, including private and public enterprises. "Change Management" deals with specific issues of enterprise management, including organizational, personnel, communication and information aspects.

It is now observed that changes have become pervasive and permanent. And this is the normal state of modern business. Changes within an organization usually occur in response to changes in the external environment. Any organization is in a process of continuous change, since otherwise its ability to survive in a dynamic environment is jeopardized.

Changes in organizations in some cases occur purposefully on the basis of systematically developed concepts of planned improvements, in others they are more informal and adaptive in nature, when the organization (or its parts) quickly adapts to the external environment by modifying its behavior (as a reaction to current events). Conflict-free implementation of changes in conditions of cooperation of the entire team is the exception rather than the rule. The phenomenon of resistance works in countries of any formation and at any level of government - the country as a whole, separate region, a separate organization, firm, enterprise, etc. and much stronger than reform decision-makers suspect and expect. And the effect of resistance is not difficult to predict, as illustrated by the results of the majority of economic reforms adopted in this way.

According to research, up to 80% of innovations fail, and in more than 50% of cases, the reason is internal factors. For the strategic survival of an enterprise, work is necessary to predict and overcome resistance to change, taking into account its intensity and the cause of its occurrence. Despite the importance of the problem, it has, unfortunately, not yet received its due scientific development, although there are already many approaches and recommendations to reduce the level of resistance to innovation or completely overcome them.

The purpose of writing a bachelor's thesis is to analyze resistance to change using the example of OJSC "KBKhA" and develop proposals for its reduction.

Within the framework of this goal, the following tasks were solved:

* consider the essence of the concept of organizational change and its types;

* reveal the concept of resistance to change, its types, causes, levels, forms, consequences;

* study methods of reducing resistance;

* consider programs for building commitment to organizational change;

ѕ carry out an analysis of the draft changes to JSC KBHA;

The subject of the study is the resistance to change that arises in organizations when implementing changes.

The object of the study is OJSC "KBHA".

1 . Theoretical foundations for managing resistance to change in organizations

1.1 Essence and types of organizational changes

IN modern conditions To survive in the market and remain competitive, organizations must continually change and make changes to their activities.

The need for strategic changes in an organization is due to two reasons: the transition from one strategic state to another and the continuity of the nature of the organization’s adaptation to changes in the external environment. Parakhina V.N. Strategic management: textbook / V.N. Parakhina, L.S. Maksimenko, S.V. Panasenko. - M.: 2008. - 496 pp..

In the management of an organization, it is customary to distinguish between the concepts of “change” and “development”. Change refers to any action to update something. Development is a process of natural change, a transition from one state to another, more perfect one, a transition from an old qualitative state to a new one, from simple to complex, from lower to higher. Thus, development, as opposed to change, can only be progressive.

Organizational development is a set of activities aimed at implementing major changes in the organization.

Organizational development can be characterized as follows:

· this is a planned and long-term process;

It is a problem-oriented process;

· this is a holistic technology that includes all the elements and connections of the organizational management system;

· this is a result-oriented management process Raspopov V.M. Change management: textbook. Benefit. - M.: Master, 2008. - 333 p., p. 79..

In the most general form, the organizational development of enterprises is described as a process of positive qualitative changes in them, affecting the ways, means of activity and interaction of people and reflected in the transformation of the organizational structure.

Organizational change is “the decision of management to change one or more internal variables in the goals, strategies, structure, personnel, products of the organization, the development of new ideas or behavior patterns by the enterprise” Newstrom J.V. Organizational behavior. / J. W. Newstrom - St. Petersburg, 2006. -448 pp..

Changes occurring in organizations can be caused by both external factors and pressure within the organization. The easiest way to differentiate between external and internal factors that cause change is to remember that external factors are outside the control of the organization, while internal factors can be controlled and changed by the organization itself.

External forces influencing the organization are formed in all sectors of the external environment (consumers, competitors, technologies, national economy, international sphere). Internal drivers of change arise from the activities of the organization itself and the policies adopted within it. management decisions. Changes in any part of an organization tend to have an impact on the organization as a whole.

External factors causing changes are:

· Social: number of people in different groups, opinions of married couples about family size, population migration, etc.

· Technological, for example, revolutionary progress in microeconomics, increasing availability of new production technologies, information systems and communication channels.

· Economic, for example, decline/rise in production; changes in exchange rates and interest rates, changes in bank interest rates, inflation rates.

· Political, for example, changes in current legislation, international agreements and treaties, external and internal obligations of the country.

· Competition, for example, the emergence of new competitors; decline and displacement of existing competitors from the market.

· Suppliers, for example, changes in prices for components, raw materials, or supply schedules for materials, depletion of raw materials.

· Consumers, for example, refusal or, conversely, increased demand for certain types of products and services.

Internal factors causing change are often related to external influence. These include: the need to increase productivity, the need to improve quality, increase sales volume, improve service, motivate and retain staff, create new types of products, internal reorganization and development of new technologies, etc.

Depending on the changing internal and external forces, innovation can occur in one or more areas and affect strategy, technology, structure and culture. Based on this, technological changes, changes in products (product changes), structural changes and changes in culture are distinguished.

Technological changes. Their ultimate goal- increasing the efficiency of production of goods or services and they are most often associated with the implementation of the main production function organizations. On the other hand, in modern organizations these changes also concern management and service technologies. We are, of course, talking about modern communication and information technology. Change management experts note that technology change is most effective when it is driven from the bottom up: technology ideas originate at lower levels of the organization and are passed on to senior management for consideration. Attempts to impose technological changes “from above” often end unsuccessfully. This is due to the fact that specialists who are close to production are therefore better aware of the possible advantages and prospects of new technologies. Management assistance to proposals coming from below may consist in the creation of creative departments Kleiner G. Reengineering of strategic processes / G. Kleiner // problems of management theory and practice - 2005 - No. 4 - P. 13-15. Technological change is more effective in flexible, decentralized structures, and rigid bureaucratic structures hinder it.

Product changes. Changes that an organization makes in its product lines or services are primarily due to changes in consumer needs and preferences. An organization that has grasped these changes and offered the market an appropriate product acquires serious competitive advantages.

Product changes may result from the emergence new technology. A classic example is the advent of computers. On the one hand, their creators had great difficulty imagining what place a computer could occupy in Everyday life of people. On the other hand, it was the appearance of this product that “triggered” the emergence and growth of entire industries and services.

Innovations associated with the entry of new products into the market affect the entire organization, since very often they are the result of the implementation of a new strategy and can lead to the formation of a new market, new market “niches”. In addition, product life cycles are shortening, so companies have to constantly invent something new to satisfy newly emerging consumer needs. For most organizations, the release of new products and services is the main way to adapt to market, technological and competitive changes.

Structural changes. These are changes related to the goals, hierarchy, procedures and structures of the organization. The most common trends in structural changes: the transition from mechanistic to adaptive structures, simplification of hierarchy, decentralization of management. Changing the remuneration system, revising the system for assessing the quality of work, introducing new rules are also examples of structural changes. Unlike technological changes, structural changes are more effective when they are carried out from the top down. Structural changes are initiated from the top, since middle and senior managers have the necessary competence for this. They also act as advocates for structural change. Technicians working at lower levels of the organization have limited administrative experience and generally have no interest in such procedures. If ordinary employees are dissatisfied with the administrative structure, their dissatisfaction may serve as a signal to management. Employee dissatisfaction is the internal driver of structural change, and senior management creates the need for change and then initiates the corresponding initiative. The top-down nature of structural changes does not mean that the best tactic for their implementation is coercion Efremov V.S. Organizations, business systems and strategic planning / V.S. Efremov // Management in Russia and abroad 2001 - No. 2. - P.15-19.. The adoption of changes can be accelerated through staff training, employee participation in the development of changes, and negotiations. Unless absolutely necessary, management should not force structural changes: otherwise, the risk of resistance and innovation failure increases significantly. Top-down change is an idea that is born from upper levels organization and “goes down” But the workers lower levels have the right to discuss planned innovations and take part in their development.

Cultural changes. This is perhaps the most slowly occurring change. This refers to changes in the values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and behavior of organizational members. In modern management, quite a lot of tools have been developed to change the culture of organizational groups and the organization as a whole. One of them is “organizational development,” which implies the use of specially developed behavioral methods to improve the socio-psychological climate of the organization and improve the system of internal relationships Daft R.L. Management / R.L. Daft. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2009. P. 386..

Changes occurring in organizations can also be classified according to the following characteristics Mazurenko I.A. Mechanism of personnel management in conditions of organizational changes: Author's abstract. dis. ...cand. econ. Sciences / Mazurenko Igor Aleksandrovich. - Voronezh, 2009. - 10s. (see Figure 1):

This classification considers organizational changes according to the following criteria: time, intensity, speed, scope of the organization, focus, content and business functions.

Before making a decision to carry out organizational changes, it is necessary to find out the attitude of the organization's employees to the changes. The attitude of organizational employees towards change can be considered as a combination of states of two factors: acceptance or non-acceptance of change and open or hidden attitude towards change. The company's management, based on conversations, interviews, and questionnaires, should try to find out what type of reaction to the change will be observed in the company, what will be the position of individual employees, various groups and especially key persons of the company. Such forecasts are of particular relevance in big companies, as well as in companies that existed without change for quite a long time long time, since here resistance to change can be especially strong.

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Figure 1 - Classification of organizational changes according to various criteria

Thus, it should be noted that organizational changes are an important and inevitable aspect of the life of every organization to maintain its competitiveness and survival in modern conditions. It should also be noted that there is a large number of types of organizational changes, and which of them need to be implemented in a given specific situation, is up to the management of the organization to decide, depending on its strategic goals and capabilities.

1.2 Resistance to change: concept, types, causes, levels, forms, consequences

Table 1 shows signs of organizational resistance. These and similar statements can be heard in an organization implementing change. organizational management management resistance

Table 1 - Signs of organizational resistance A.N. Lyukshinov Strategic management / A.N. Lyukshinov - Moscow, 2000 - 375 pp., p. 180.

Statements typical of resistance to change in an organization	The essence of the statement
* Patience and a little effort
* Let's start a new life on Monday	Procrastination
* Don't play the game	Uncertainty
* A new cry broke the paralysis	Lack of implementation
* The more paint we spend (on slogans), the less we believe in fairy tales	Strategic inefficiency
* What the boss doesn’t know, he doesn’t suffer from.
*Let's get back to the real work!	Retreat

When describing resistance to change, first of all, there are two forms of resistance depending on its strength and intensity: passive and active.

Forms of passive resistance (inaction) can be:

· persistent public expressions of concerns about new ideas and the favorable outcome of reforms; their criticism; denial of the need for change in general;

· delaying, under various pretexts, making appropriate decisions and starting active actions;

· hiding or ignoring information about the benefits of changes;

· formal use of new working methods.

Active resistance can consist of the following actions:

· issuing false information;

· linking the start of work in a new way with certain conditions;

· setting unclear goals, issuing deliberately erroneous, vague orders;

· refusal to teach it to others and to improve one’s own qualifications;

· introduction of a disincentive model of remuneration for participants;

· isolation of supporters of change;

· violation of instructions, open resistance;

· diversion of resources for other purposes, their dispersion;

· artificially creating an environment of confusion, vanity, sabotage;

· intrigues aimed at splitting the team Vesnin V.R. Personnel Management. Theory and practice / V.R. Vesnin - M., 2009 - 517 pp..

Table 2 - Types of resistance shown by employees

Types of resistance	Factors of resistance
Logical, rational objections	Time required for adaptation Possibility of creating undesirable conditions, such as downgrading Economic Costs of Change The technical feasibility of the changes is questionable
Psychological, emotional attitudes	Fear of the unknown Inability to adapt to change Adaptation to management or other change agents
Sociological factors, group interests	Political coalitions Supporting group values Local limited interests

Resistance to change is not accidental. Its common causes are the following:

1. Inertia, the desire to function as usual (the main inhibitor of change), to stability, to which all elements of the control mechanism, rules, standards and others are subordinated.

2. The interconnectedness of all subjects of the organization, restraining each other.

3. Psychological rejection by people, the main reasons for which can be combined into several groups: economic, political, organizational, personal, social. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

Organizational reasons are:

· the possibility of weakening individual elements of the organization or it as a whole, loss of its controllability;

· inconveniences associated with working in a new way;

· contradictions between new mechanisms and traditional methods of work;

· lack of sufficient motivation.

Personal reasons are determined by the psychological characteristics of people:

· habit of the old (a person generally does not like it when the normal course of events is disrupted);

· fear of the new, unknown;

· fear of showing incompetence;

· lack of confidence in one’s own strengths, the ability to master new types of activities (many in such situations lose flexibility of thinking and become aggressive);

· awareness of a threat to a position, career, personal power, status, position in the organization, respect for management and colleagues;

· reluctance to disrupt the usual way of life, overcome difficulties, take on additional responsibilities, and work independently.

Social reasons resistance is characteristic not only of individual members of the organization or their groups, but also of the entire team as a whole. Here you can name:

· desire for social stability, lack of conviction in the need for change;

· dissatisfaction with methods of implementation, imposition, surprise; distrust of change initiators;

· confidence that the latter occur solely in the interests of management;

· threat of destruction of the existing organizational culture, values, formation of an unfavorable moral and psychological climate Vesnin R.V. Personnel management / R.V. Vesnin - M.; 2009..

American researchers J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger proposed a systematization of the causes of resistance and reactions to them. The main results of their research are presented in Table 3.

Table 3 - Reasons for resistance to change Lapygin Yu.N. Strategic management / Yu.N. Lapygin - M.; 2009.- 236 p.

	Result
Selfish interest	Expectation of personal loss of something valuable as a result of change	"Political" behavior
Misunderstanding of strategy goals	Low degree of trust in managers laying out a change plan
Different assessments of the consequences of implementing the strategy	Inadequate perception of plans; possibility of existence of other sources of information	Open disagreement
Low tolerance for change	People fear that they do not have the necessary skills and abilities	Behavior aimed at maintaining one's own prestige

Let's look at the data given in the table in more detail.

Reaction to resistance may vary. Managers often encounter behavior that appears to them to be resistance to strategy implementation. In this case, it is necessary to understand the various options and nuances of this phenomenon. To understand how to respond to resistance, it is helpful to identify forms of resistance at the following levels:

· organizational level

· group level

· individual level

Understanding at what level resistance occurs and how it is characterized allows the manager to direct efforts in the right direction. Each of these levels has its own characteristics of resistance and its own methods of influence in order to reduce resistance.

The organizational level implies the presence of organizational barriers. Examples of these are:

· inertia of complex organizational structures, difficulty in reorienting thinking due to established social norms;

· interdependence of subsystems, leading to the fact that one “unsynchronized” change slows down the implementation of the entire project;

· resistance to the transfer of privileges to certain groups and possible changes in the existing “balance of power”;

· past negative experiences associated with change projects;

· resistance to transformation processes imposed by consultants from outside.

The group level presupposes the presence of formal (administrations, departments, etc.) and informal (groups of “veterans,” “trade unions,” etc.) groups. This level also has some features:

· providing the group with information directly related to the problem;

· achieving a common understanding of the need for change by all group members;

· a sense of belonging to a group and initiation of changes within the group;

· support for changes by the group leader (maintaining psychological significance for individual members);

· awareness of all group members.

Resistance to change at the individual level can be of three types: logical, psychological, sociological. These types have been discussed in more detail above.

At the individual level, the following barriers are identified:

· fear of the unknown, when preference is given to the familiar;

· the need for guarantees, especially when one’s own job is at risk;

· denial of the need for change and fear of obvious losses (for example, maintaining the same wages while increasing labor costs);

· threat to social relations established at the old workplace;

· lack of involvement in the transformation of persons affected by the changes;

· lack of resources and time due to operational work, which slows down changes that cannot be implemented “in the meantime.”

To help an employee gain a new understanding of what is happening and reconsider his attitude towards change, most often it requires individual work with him to explain the benefits and benefits that he will personally receive as a result of implementing the strategy. Such work should lead to a change in employee behavior.

2 . Methodological basis for managing resistance to change

2.1 Resistance reduction methods

Choosing a method to overcome resistance is a complex process, primarily because no two organizations are alike. And each one requires an individual approach. However, there are still a number of fairly universal methods for overcoming resistance to strategic changes.

Below we consider two groups of methods proposed by E. Hughes, J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger.

E. Hughes identifies eight factors for overcoming resistance to change: Zub A.T. Strategic management. Theory and practice / A.T. Zub - M.: Aspect - Press, 2004.

Factor 1: taking into account the reasons for individual behavior in the organization: take into account the needs, inclinations and hopes of those affected by the changes; demonstrate that they receive individual benefits from the implementation of the strategy.

Factor 3: Providing information to the group: relevant information, relevant and of sufficient importance.

Factor 4: achieving common understanding: common understanding of the need for change; participation in the search and interpretation of information.

Factor 5: Sense of Group Belonging: general feeling involvement in changes; sufficient degree of participation.

Factor 7: support for change by the group leader: involvement of the leader in a specific work environment (without interruption from direct work).

Factor 8: awareness of group members: opening communication channels; exchange of objective information; knowledge of the achieved results of the change.

Let us consider the content of these factors in more detail.

Taking into account the reasons for individual behavior in an organization. Any change must take into account the needs, inclinations and hopes of those affected by the change. Before taking part in the change process, a person must see a certain personal gain that he will receive as a result of these changes, then he is unlikely to resist the change.

The importance of a leader's authority. The higher the leader's authority, the greater the influence he can have on the change process. In most organizations, the manager has greater prestige than the members of the work team entrusted to him, so the wishes of the manager are usually a more powerful incentive for starting and maintaining the process of change than the wishes of one or another of his subordinates. Moreover, the official leader of the team and the real leader (often informal) do not necessarily have to be the same person. Often, an unofficial leader with high authority in the workforce can have a great influence on the change process. Regardless of whether there is an informal leader, the line manager has more power and influence than the "coach" from the personnel training department.

Providing information to the group. A conscious desire for change can arise in a group if it is given information about how the group will act in the process of change, what its task is, how its work will change, etc., especially if this data is objective and contains new information , complementing the existing one. Change-related information concentrated in one organization or group has more influence than general information about the activities of individual people. The more information is centralized, accessible, relevant, and relevant to the problem, the greater the opportunity for successful implementation changes. For example, information obtained through a survey, when correct use may bring more benefits to a specific workforce than general data on intentions.

Achieving a common understanding. A strong desire for change can be generated by the achievement of a common understanding among all group members of the need for change, while the initiative aimed at stimulating change will come from the group itself. To do this, employees must know what problems the organization actually faces and what paths have been chosen to solve these problems. The facts produced by individuals or groups, or the participation of these individuals or groups in planning, as well as in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, have a significant impact on the change process. Information obtained by one member of a group of employees is more understandable, more acceptable, and more likely to be used than that provided by an “external expert.” In particular, participation in the analysis and interpretation of data can reduce or eliminate resistance that arises from moving things too slowly or too quickly. If data is to become the evidence base for driving change, it must be presented and perceived correctly. It's all about the fundamental difference between the situation when an independent consulting firm is invited to conduct a study and prepare a report, from the situation when the study is carried out on its own with the assistance of independent experts.

Feeling of belonging to a group. The power of resistance to change is reduced when the employees who are about to experience the change and those who are trying to influence the change feel that they belong to the same group. Change that comes from within appears much less threatening and causes less resistance than change that is imposed from without. The degree of participation in changes may vary. The highest degree of participation (usually the most effective) is characterized by the participation of all group members. The next level of participation corresponds to the participation of individual group members. The lowest degree involves the participation of only the manager. This does not necessarily increase positive attitudes toward change, but it does significantly reduce overt resistance.

The authority of the group for its members. The more authoritative a group is to its members, the more influence it can have on them. A group is attractive to its members to the extent that it satisfies their needs. This entails each group member being willing to be influenced by other members and increasing incentives for group cohesion if this is important to the group. When it comes to change, group cohesion can either reduce or increase resistance, depending on whether the group perceives the change to be beneficial or harmful.

Group leader support for change. A group that retains psychological significance for its individual members has more influence than a group whose membership is short-lived. A change process that involves organizing individual managers into temporary teams away from their day job is less effective for long-term changes than a change process in which managers are involved in a specific work environment.

Awareness of group members. Information relating to the need for change, plans for change and its consequences must be communicated to all affected team members. This principle can be formulated as follows: the process of change requires the deliberate and deliberate opening of communication channels. Blocking these channels usually leads to mistrust and hostility. In particular, objective information about the scale and direction of changes (knowledge of the results) facilitates further changes, as people imagine what awaits them as a result of implementing the strategy. Change processes that provide concrete information about the progress made to date and provide criteria against which improvements can be measured are more successful in initiating and sustaining change than processes that do not provide such specific information and feedback.

J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger offer the following methods for overcoming staff resistance to organizational change:

· information and communication;

· participation and involvement;

· help and support;

· negotiations and agreements;

· manipulation and co-optation;

· explicit and implicit coercion.

This approach partly overlaps with the approach of E. Hughes, which indicates that these researchers find general patterns when implementing organizational changes. Let us consider the ways and conditions for the successful implementation of the methods identified by J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger.

Information and communication - one of the most common ways to overcome resistance to implementing a strategy is to inform people in advance. Gaining insight into upcoming strategic changes helps to understand the need for these changes and their logic. The outreach process may include one-on-one discussions, group workshops, or reports. In practice, this is done, for example, by conducting seminars by the manager for lower-level managers.

Participation and involvement - If strategists involve potential opponents of the strategy during the planning stage, they can often avoid resistance. In an effort to gain participation in the implementation of strategic change, change initiators listen to the opinions of employees involved in this strategy and subsequently use their advice. J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger found that many managers take the issue of staff participation in strategy implementation very seriously. Sometimes this is positive, sometimes negative, i.e. Some managers believe that they should always be involved in the change process, while others consider this a definite mistake. Both relationships can create a number of problems for a manager, as neither is ideal.

Help and support can come in the form of opportunities to learn new skills, free time to learn, or simply the opportunity to be listened to and receive emotional support. Help and support are especially needed when resistance is rooted in fear and anxiety. Experienced, stern managers usually ignore these types of resistance, as well as the effectiveness of this method of dealing with resistance. Crisis Management: A Textbook. Ed. EM. Korotkova. - M.: Infra, 2010. - 120s..

Negotiation and agreement - Another way to deal with resistance is to provide incentives to active or potential opponents of the change. For example, a manager may offer an employee a higher salary in exchange for a change in work assignment, he may increase the pension of an individual employee in exchange for more early date retirement. Negotiation is especially appropriate when it is clear that someone has to lose as a result of the change, but nevertheless has significant resistance power.

Manipulation and co-optation - in some situations, managers try to hide their intentions from other people by using manipulation. Manipulations in in this case imply selective use of information and conscious presentation of events in a certain order beneficial to the initiator of change. One of the most common forms of manipulation is co-optation. Co-optation of an individual involves giving him the desired role in planning and implementing changes. Co-optation of a team implies giving one of its leaders or someone whom the group respects a key role in planning and implementing changes Aleksandrova G.A. Anti-crisis management: Educational and practical manual / ed. G.A. Alexandrova. - M.: BEK Publishing House, 2009. .

Explicit and Implicit Coercion - Managers often overcome resistance through coercion. Basically, they force people to accept strategic changes through implicit or explicit threats (threats of losing a job, promotion opportunity, etc.), or through actual dismissal, or through transfer to a lower-paying job. Like manipulation, the use of coercion is a risky process because people always resist imposed change. However, in situations where a strategy must be implemented quickly, and where it is not popular no matter how it is implemented, coercion may be the manager's only option.

The latter method requires critical evaluation. It is recommended not to resort to it under any circumstances. Management practice shows that the most ingenious change plans do not work if the human factor is ignored. The main condition for the success of changes undertaken in an organization is the readiness of staff to fully realize their potential to achieve their goals, and this can never be achieved using forced methods.

The advantages and disadvantages of the methods described above are given in the following table:

Table 4 - Advantages and disadvantages of methods for overcoming resistance

	Situation	Advantages (advantages)	Flaws
Information and communication ...

Resistance to organizational change. What is resistance to change and how to work with it

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