Posted by Brooke Paulshock on January, 13 2014 in Management

The toughest challenge of organizational leaders today is to manage at the speed of change. With the breathtaking pace of technological advancement which will only continue to escalate, and the doubling of knowledge every 5 years, leaders face tremendous pressure as they try to gain support for change. Regardless of how good or necessary a change may be, resistance should be expected. A survey of 500 executives conducted by William Schiemann (1992) concluded that resistance was the main reason why organizational changes fail. A study by Hammer and Associates found that 60% of the reengineering projects that failed were due to employee resistance (Moomough, 1999). In a survey of 2,200 executives, managers, and employees conducted by Aguirre, von Post, & Alpern (2013) report that transformation efforts fail for three main reasons: 
change fatigue, lack of skill in sustaining change, and resistance to change. While preventing resistance completely is an unrealistic goal, the ability to manage resistance effectively has emerged as an essential skill. This article will help you do that by offering a conceptual framework for  understanding resistance, and also practical suggestions for assessing and overcoming it.

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