Anyone who is going to study change management (and who isn't in the age of the AI) is bound to come across Kotter's now rather stale model. An eight-step model that is supposed to guarantee a successful change process. One of the eight steps in this model is 'creating support'. Once you have formed a coalition, determined the urgency of change and formulated a vision and a communication plan, you can get started.

Support

Time and again, support proves to be an important success factor in change, as we are currently experiencing with AI developments. If you manage to get your employees excited about the developments, the chances of success are high. But practice is unruly. Resistance rears its head like storms in the fall and the road to your goal often turns out to be longer than you had planned. The question is: why is that?

I was recently on my way to a conference for trainee gynaecologists to talk to them about change management. They had indicated beforehand that their profession is somewhat conservative and not exactly eager for change. And there was the issue of the day. The department had its hands full with the practical tasks and responsibilities that crossed its path.

Changing the issue of the day

Practical matters are often brought up when the question is why a change process gets stuck. Usually the issue is the 'fads of the day', which prevent people from making changes. At meetings people will shout that it is all very important, but in practice it appears that prioritizing causes the change actions to take a back seat.

There is a simple reason why we are determined by the issues of the day, while we want to change those issues. However, the issues themselves apparently do not change so quickly. This has to do with our brain, among other things. Our consciousness, which not only plans changes but also imposes them on our behavior (planned behavior), probably resides (discussions are ongoing) in a relatively new part of the brain: the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain appeared relatively late in evolution.

Some brain gymnastics

This prefrontal cortex is substantially larger in humans than in other mammals. But we also have something in common with other mammals, and that is our limbic system; an evolutionarily older area of the brain that includes the corpus collosum and the amygdala (google it if you don't know what these are). It is involved in our fight-flight-freeze mechanism, for example, which is a reaction to insecurity.

This limbic system has served Homo sapiens well in the past. It enabled our ancestors to survive on earth. It is focused on safety, survival and reproduction. Unlike the prefrontal cortex, it often acts unconsciously: our consciousness is not involved. We may experience something, but only realize it afterwards.

Planning behavior for changes

Russian-American neuroscientist Elkhonon Goldberg compares our brain to an orchestra. The prefrontal cortex is a young conductor; the orchestra members (the limbic system) are old and have been independent for a long time. In other words, the limbic system has had to make do without the prefrontal cortex for a long time in the course of evolution.

For quite some time now, we humans have been trying to plan our behavior, for example in the face of change. We want to work on our ethics and integrity or deal more flexibly with the consequences of the digital revolution (these are just a couple of examples). This requires that we consciously deal with a number of issues. Reflecting on what we do or did, thinking about the effects of our behavior. We are going to 'pre-frontally direct' ourselves and hope that our limbic system cooperates.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The old orchestra members ignore the young conductor and continue to play their own music. Our planning is interrupted, our behavior diverges from our intentions. This usually happens because the new requires extra attention and our brain does not always like that.

The 'lazy' brain wants security and efficiency above all else.

Psychologist Kahnemann shows that our brain is lazy. According to him, we have a routine system and a system that becomes active when the routine system fails. He calls these systems 1 and 2, respectively. Because the brain uses no less than 20% of our body's energy, it always looks for a simple solution. If one cannot be found, it has to get to work.

It resists this. And we experience that as resistance. No matter how loudly we shout from the top of our lungs that we want to 'step out of our comfort zone' and 'think outside the box', subconsciously we mainly want security and we experience this most strongly in familiar surroundings and routines. Changes interrupt these two things. Because the subconscious plays such a strong role in changes, we are often not aware of these levels.

Furthermore, people sometimes don't dare to come out and talk about their fears because they are afraid of losing their job. And that, biologically speaking, affects our survival instinct. Then we fight, openly or strategically. We experience the threat of losing our job as life-threatening and look for ways to avert the danger. Nowadays we do this with arguments and rational objections that in fact have little to do with the actual content of our feelings.

Fear slows down change

Whether you are highly or poorly educated, these mechanisms also work for you and if you are a manager, they also work for your people. An example of highly educated people could be found among gynaecologists themselves. I saw fear in a number of them. The number of jobs in the sector is greatly decreasing. The question of whether people would keep their jobs played a large role. Partly because of this, there was fear of the rise of obstetrics, which does have some overlap with the work of gynaecologists.

Others saw opportunities in this: after all, gynaecologists can become obstetricians. But not everyone liked this idea, because it could make the work less interesting. (I am only repeating what I heard). A decline in the job content is one of the things that people find difficult; in many cases because it can have consequences for salary and status. This can be conscious, but also unconscious.

How do you handle this? The answer is complex. I will limit myself to one of the answers, but they are just words. In practice, I work with these things a lot and of course more is needed than just a few words on paper. But anyway, an answer: if you want to give someone a sense of security, you will have to be reliable and look for the real sense of resistance.

Uncover personal stories, build trust, be transparent

It is often the art of getting on a level with people that they will trust you and be willing to tell you their personal story. Resistance to policy is often resistance that stems from past experiences with people. Often you cannot offer the security that people need in processes of change. Be honest and transparent about this. Your reliability can be a safety net for people in times of uncertainty.

However, hidden agendas work in the opposite direction. They make people distrustful. And the fashionable approach of 'taking people out of their comfort zone' or 'getting them to think outside the box' does not increase safety, but rather resistance. This is true even in disruptive situations. In short: as a leader, be honest and act with integrity towards your people. Realize that there are families behind these people, children studying, mortgages. These securities are always at stake when there is resistance.

Bert Overbeek has been a trainer, team coach and executive coach for 30 years. He has worked for more than 100 organizations at home and abroad. He has written seven management books, four of which made the top five of Managementboek. Overbeek wants to work towards a healthy future for companies in all areas. And that includes integrity and healthy criticism. (Bert_overbeek@hotmail.com)