Encourage Resilience To Overcome Change Resistance
Developing adaptive employees has been a goal of organizations for over a decade. While the pandemic forced a degree of adaptation for all of us, it also created even more uncertainty as we look toward the future. Moreover, adaptation fatigue, one of the myriad reasons people resist change, may have worsened, making it even harder to encourage team members to continue to be adaptive or, more simply, to go with the flow.
That leaves leaders with a tremendous challenge: how can you help team members who were hired for clearly defined roles and responsibilities transform into engaged workers who rise to a challenge?
The historic focus on processes, controls and efficiency to ensure standardization in production created employees who were trained to follow routines, not to question the status quo. Employees were rarely encouraged to constantly evaluate their work and look for new ways to change those processes. Rather, they were taught to follow rules or suffer punishment, which could take a variety of forms, from critical performance assessments to lower bonuses to lesser status among peers.
In contrast, researchers have found that developing resilience, or helping team members learn how to respond openly to challenges, is the key to establishing the right mindset for change. That requires a tolerance for…
