Be the Best in Business: Managing Change: Does Urgency Create Resistance?

Did you ever wonder why some companies manage to change what needs to be changed within their organizations without alienating their employees, while others fail miserably, losing the respect and trust of their employees in the process? This recent post from the blog--Be the Best in Business: Managing Change: Does Urgency Create Resistance?--provides some really good insights about how change can be managed successfully in a business. The author says that a company that views change as an urgent issue will create stressed and resistant employees and is not the way to get those most affected by change--'employees in the trenches'--on board or on your side. As the post says 'Guiding change may be the ultimate test of a leader, since no business survives over the long term if it can’t reinvent itself. But human nature being what it is, fundamental change is often resisted mightily by the people it most affects: those in the trenches of the business. Thus, leading change is both absolutely essential and incredibly difficult'. 

Finally, an article that tells it like it really is, that considers change from the perspective of employees but that also discusses how a company can get its employees to understand that change is healthy and a part of business development. Well-done. I wish I had read this a few years ago, when urgent and immediate change (for the sake of change) was the predominant operative in my workplace. The sense of 'crisis and urgency' was palpable on a daily basis and did not lead to either productivity or job satisfaction. It merely created employee dissatisfaction that has persisted to this day. There were definitely better ways to approach the idea of change, but leadership at that time failed to find them.