#100: Your Team Isn’t Resisting Change...They’re Resisting Being Changed.

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Dwight: Think about the last time a change was announced to you.

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Dwight: Maybe it was a reorg.

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Dwight: Or maybe they said, we don't want to call it a reorg.

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Dwight: Maybe it was a new leader.

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Dwight: a new system.

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Dwight: A return to office decision.

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Dwight: A shift in priorities that quietly made 6 months of your work feel irrelevant.

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Dwight: Someone stood at the front of the room, or appeared in a little square in your screen, and explained why the change made sense.

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Dwight: The slides were polished. The timelines were ambitious.

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Dwight: They may have even… Set aside a little time for questions.

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Dwight: But the decision had already been made.

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Dwight: Your role was not to help shape the change, your role was to understand, And accept it.

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Dwight: And help make it work.

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Dwight: Then, when people hesitated, leadership called it resistance.

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Dwight: But what if people weren't resisting change?

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Dwight: What if they were resisting being changed?

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Dwight: I'm Dwight. You're listening to Community and Becoming from For the Love of Creatives.

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Dwight: I'm not here to lay out an argument that every organizational decision should be made by a committee.

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Dwight: Some decisions are already fixed.

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Dwight: Some changes are urgent. Sometimes, leaders know things they can't yet talk about.

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Dwight: But there's a difference between making a necessary decision and designing a change process that treats the people closest to the work

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Dwight: As an obstacle to manage.

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Dwight: Today, I want to explore what resistance may be telling us.

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Dwight: And what becomes possible?

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Dwight: When people are involved in a way that allows them to contribute to a change, instead of simply being asked to comply.

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Dwight: Years ago, part of my work involved helping local government teams implement

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Dwight: New technology in courthouses, in jails.

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Dwight: On paper, the work was technical.

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Dwight: Understand the process. Configure the system.

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Dwight: Train the users, and go live!

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Dwight: In reality, the hardest part was rarely the software.

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Dwight: I'd walk into a room where people had been doing important work for years and, you know, doing things that are very…

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Dwight: high stakes. We're talking, in some cases, life and death decisions.

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Dwight: They knew where the unofficial handoffs lived.

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Dwight: They knew which shortcut prevented a backlog.

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Dwight: They knew which field looked insignificant on a screen, but mattered to the person standing at a public counter, or sitting in a courtroom.

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Dwight: Or waiting in a jail cell.

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Dwight: Then, someone from the outside arrived with a new system and a project plan.

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Dwight: I hated being that guy.

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Dwight: if I treated them… If I treated their hesitation as simply being stubborn.

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Dwight: I lost access to the very intelligence the implementation needed.

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Dwight: But when I got curious, when I asked them to walk me through what they actually did, what they were protecting, and what a better day would make possible.

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Dwight: The room changed. Not because everyone suddenly loved the new system.

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Dwight: The room changed because their experience

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Dwight: Had become part of the work.

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Dwight: So here's the distinction I keep coming back to.

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Dwight: Resistance.

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Dwight: isn't always a wall in front of the work. Sometimes, resistance is information the work hasn't yet learned how to hear.

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Dwight: It may be telling you that people expect

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Dwight: Another initiative to disappear in 6 months.

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Dwight: It may be telling you that they've seen this before. It's just the flavor of the week.

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Dwight: It may be telling you that change threatens competence, Status.

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Dwight: Belonging.

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Dwight: Or an identity that someone has spent years building.

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Dwight: It may be telling you that the people designing the plan can't seem to see something that the people doing the work see every day, because

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Dwight: They're in the middle of it.

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Dwight: And yes, resistance Can also be fear.

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Dwight: habit.

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Dwight: Politics. Or a preference for the familiar.

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Dwight: I can't tell you how many times I've played the game of trying to get to the bottom, the infinite game of why that children play.

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Dwight: And the answer is, well, because that's the way we've always done it.

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Dwight: Not throwing shade.

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Dwight: We cling to the things that are familiar and comfortable. They're tried and true, they work.

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Dwight: But the way around that is just remaining.

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Dwight: Curious.

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Dwight: Being kind and open, and showing a real interest.

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Dwight: Curiosity doesn't require us to romanticize every objection.

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Dwight: It asks us not to diagnose the whole room before we've listened to it.

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Dwight: It's an opportunity for you to just show up and be a good human being.

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Dwight: And actually care about the person, or the whole group of people.

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Dwight: That are having a change forced on them.

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Dwight: Have a little empathy.

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Dwight: And figure out a way that everybody wins.

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Dwight: Whenever I encounter resistance, I'm gonna listen for at least 3 messages inside it.

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Dwight: The first message has to do with loss.

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Dwight: So it's… it's gonna look like saying.

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Dwight: What does this change ask people to release?

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Dwight: Is it a routine?

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Dwight: a relationship?

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Dwight: A sense of mastery, a story about who they are here.

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Dwight: The second message… is around trust.

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Dwight: What has this organization taught people to expect?

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Dwight: Have they seen leaders ask for input, and then… Disappear?

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Dwight: Have priorities changed without acknowledgement?

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Dwight: Is silence being mistaken for agreement?

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Dwight: The third message… is intelligence.

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Dwight: What do people closest to the work know that's not…

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Dwight: Being made part of the plan.

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Dwight: These three messages Need 3 ways of being addressed.

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Dwight: Loss needs acknowledgement.

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Dwight: Trust.

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Dwight: needs evidence.

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Dwight: Intelligence needs somewhere to go.

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Dwight: A good facilitation partner Doesn't force those three things into the same answer.

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Dwight: A good facilitator helps the room tell the difference.

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Dwight: This is where invitations matter.

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Dwight: Too many change conversations and be… too many change conversations begin with a promise that sounds like, we want your input!

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Dwight: When what leadership really means is.

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Dwight: We want your acceptance. We want your unquestioning compliance. We just want you to roll over and do what we say.

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Dwight: Because we said so.

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Dwight: People can feel the difference.

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Dwight: A more honest invitation names three things.

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Dwight: What's already decided?

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Dwight: What's genuinely open to influence?

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Dwight: And what will happen with what people contribute?

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Dwight: If the destination is fixed, perhaps the route is still open.

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Dwight: If the technology has already been selected.

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Dwight: Then maybe the workflow, the training, the support, measures of success, the implementation pace can still benefit from the wisdom of the room.

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Dwight: Boundaries don't kill participation.

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Dwight: It's false possibility that does.

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Dwight: It's those subtle messages that… Tell people that they're just there to sit down and shut up.

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Dwight: We've all experienced those things.

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Dwight: I don't want this to remain an idea you agree with while you're driving or you're folding laundry.

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Dwight: So, if you're busy doing something, I want you to come back to this and walk through what we're about to get into.

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Dwight: Now, if you're willing, I want you to think.

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Dwight: Of a change that you've lived through.

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Dwight: It can be happening now, or it could be something that you still remember in your bones.

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Dwight: And don't choose the most traumatic change of your life. Choose something that you can look at with some room to breathe.

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Dwight: Alright, got it in your head?

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Dwight: And we're gonna look at it together here. First question.

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Dwight: When, during the change?

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Dwight: Did you feel most informed, respected, or able to contribute?

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Dwight: Maybe it was a conversation that you had with a manager.

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Dwight: Maybe.

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Dwight: Somebody explained why without pretending to know everything.

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Dwight: Maybe your team was allowed to solve the problem in its own way.

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Dwight: What happened in the moment?

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Dwight: What did the leader or the group do that made participation… made participation feel real?

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Dwight: And what did that allow you to bring that might otherwise have stayed hidden?

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Dwight: Now, I want you to bring…

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Dwight: the memory of that change into the present.

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Dwight: What condition from that moment Is missing in the change that you're facing now.

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Dwight: Was it Clarity?

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Dwight: Choice?

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Dwight: Time to make sense of what was happening?

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Dwight: Permission to say what others were avoiding?

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Dwight: evidence that… Somebody would do something with what you shared?

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Dwight: Finally, what's one conversation you could convene? Not control, but convene.

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Dwight: That would restore A little of that original condition.

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Dwight: Who needs to be in it?

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Dwight: What question would make their experience useful?

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Dwight: And what honest boundary needs to be named before anyone speaks?

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Dwight: Our conversation will not transform.

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Dwight: An organization in an afternoon.

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Dwight: But the way we design that conversation can tell whether transformation is actually possible.

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Dwight: when I think about Any change gathering.

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Dwight: A leadership retreat.

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Dwight: An employee summit, a strategy session, a conference.

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Dwight: Even a difficult team meeting.

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Dwight: I'm thinking about what happens while everyone is in the room.

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Dwight: I'm thinking about the invitation.

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Dwight: What are people being asked to bring?

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Dwight: And what are they being promised?

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Dwight: I'm thinking about the room.

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Dwight: Whose voice becomes easy to hear, and whose wisdom Needs a different way in.

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Dwight: I'm thinking about the decisions.

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Dwight: What will be made here?

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Dwight: What will travel forward?

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Dwight: And who owns the next move?

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Dwight: And… I'm thinking about the return.

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Dwight: What happens 30 days later, when urgency's moved on and old habits are waiting?

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Dwight: Change doesn't have to become… Something oppressive, and it doesn't become real.

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Dwight: Because everyone had a… Great meeting, or a… High emotional afternoon together.

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Dwight: Change becomes real.

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Dwight: When the conversation changes what people see.

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Dwight: What they can shape.

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Dwight: And what they're willing to do next.

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Dwight: There has to be something that…

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Dwight: Tugs at people inside that makes them actually shift.

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Dwight: It's not something that we can just…

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Dwight: Either get on the train, or… Get the boot.

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Dwight: If you're leading change, Here's the question that I'd leave on your desk.

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Dwight: Where are we asking for buy-in when we should be creating the condition for contribution?

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Dwight: Buy-in comes too late in the sentence.

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Dwight: It asks people to… Attach themselves to something somebody else has already completed.

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Dwight: Contribution begins earlier.

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Dwight: It says, There are realities we must honor. There are decisions we must make.

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Dwight: And there is intelligence in this system we can't afford to waste.

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Dwight: You don't have to surrender leadership to let people participate.

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Dwight: You may have to practice

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Dwight: a different brand of leadership. One that's strong enough to name the boundaries, and curious enough

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Dwight: To let the room change the plan.

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Dwight: And if you're planning a retreat, summit.

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Dwight: Leadership gathering, or a change initiative.

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Dwight: And you want people to do more than nod their way through it.

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Dwight: I would be glad to help you design the conversations that need to happen before Inside.

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Dwight: And after the room.

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Dwight: We'll include a link in the show notes to start the conversation.

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Dwight: Until next time.

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Dwight: Keep creating community, And keep becoming.