Team member resistance makes everything harder.
It consumes energy, focus, and trust.
The friction resistance creates redirects effort away from results and goals and shifts the focus from productivity to managing emotions and reactions.
It stalls progress, destroys momentum, disrupts alignment and coordination, feeds uncertainty, and makes execution more complex and less effective.
That’s why good leaders are always “reading the room,” looking for wherever resistance may be hiding and waiting to slow things down.
The less resistance a leader creates or must deal with, the better.
Most resistance or controversy can be predicted and offset before it appears. This makes the ability to recognize where resistance, misunderstanding, or pushback is likely to arise an essential and powerful leadership skill.
The skill of anticipating resistance is largely one of audience interpretation.
Understanding how different audiences and groups will interpret a decision, action, or message is at the core of developing this skill.
Skillful leaders make the presumption that people have the potential to view any decision, action, or message very differently from how it is intended. Understanding the reasons for different interpretations is how leaders anticipate resistance.
Asking “What is the worst or most negative interpretation the primary audience could make of this decision, action, or message?” narrows the list of reasons and gives leaders insight into where resistance is likely to show itself.
For instance, a decision to change the compensation model of an organization is likely to produce resistance and a negative reaction by some. If for no other reason than that change is uncomfortable.
But more negative interpretations must be considered if they are to be circumvented.
By exploring the worst-case question, a leader might generate this list:
- Team members believe that the compensation change is being introduced to save money without consideration of the downside to team members.
- The negative consequences of the change haven’t been thought through or deeply considered.
- The organization is simply following other enterprises and mimicking what they are doing.
- The organization is on a shaky financial footing.
- Leadership views team members as fungible and easily replaceable.
Every decision, action, or message has its own worst-case interpretations, and different audiences often produce very different points of resistance.
Thinking through the possible worst-case interpretations of any upcoming decision, action, or message before it is enacted allows leaders to strategize about how to overcome or reduce the resistance.
In many cases, the issues to be addressed are now painfully obvious, such as informing team members of the research and study involved in changing the compensation model in the example above.
In other cases, addressing the resistance will take a more sophisticated strategy or approach.
Using the worst-case interpretation approach will quickly highlight the objections that might arise and anticipate the discomfort and resistance before they materialize.
Not only does this give leaders an opportunity to temper resistance, but it also makes them less likely to become defensive, take criticism personally, and shut down dissent.
The strongest leaders aren’t surprised by resistance or controversy.
They’re prepared for it.
They practice “reading” audiences by predicting their reactions and resistance to the ongoing flow of decisions, actions, and messages.
Once they conclude the worst-case interpretations, leaders have a foundation from which they can address any pushback.
Smart leaders know resistance is always the biggest obstacle they face.
