The Art of Embracing Employee Resistance During “Staff Meetings”!

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons!Whether you call them “staff meetings” or “team meetings”, delivering information is one of the most important functions of a manager! Your credibility as a leader can be established or diminished based on how well you deliver both good and bad news. Of course, any “manager” can communicate, but it takes a “leader” to get your team to enthusiastically embrace your message with minimal resistance despite the various personalities in the room!   I’ve outlined tips for entering a meeting with realistic expectations, and preparing for your meeting in such a way that decreases employee resistance.  In addition, I offer simple guidelines for effective communication .  If you want to build leadership credibility, embrace resistance and follow these steps for your next employee meeting!

First Step: Enter the meeting with realistic expectations!  

  1. Anticipate and embrace employee resistance!  People are intuitively hard wired to resist change. Anticipate why they may be resistant to what you are communicating, so that you can prepare to address those concerns.
  2. Sometimes, the employees with the best ideas and valid concerns may be the same people who lack the communication skills and confidence to express them
    appropriately.
  • Manager’s miss a great opportunity to get useful information when they are “stuck” on “how” a person communicates versus “what” the person is communicating.  Try to understand the meaning behind the eye-ball rolling, the huffing, the teeth sucking, the closed armed stance and the negative tone of voice.
  • Stay calm.  Those employee behaviors are more likely to cease once the reason for them is contended with.  And if those behaviors don’t go away, the way
    you deal with them can earn you respect from others in the group!

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  1. Silence is not evidence of employee satisfaction!   It’s best to anticipate what the employee’s concerns might be, so that you can address those concerns in your presentation.  Some of the incentives not to communicate may include the following:
    • Fear of retaliation by fellow employees or the supervisor.
    • Fear of being perceived as a complainer.
    • Lack of communication skills or confidence.
    • The belief that you don’t care what their opinions are.
    • Some might be quite content letting the more vocal employees speak on their behalf while they pretend to be content with your message.

4.  Employees won’t just “fall in line” because you’re the “boss”.  The extent to which people will embrace your message or sabotage it, is dependent on how credible you are.  Once a manager exhibits a pattern of effective leadership traits, credibility is established.

5.  People don’t always say what they mean, especially when they feel that they need to defend their position!  Knowing this will help you look to the “function” of the defensive behavior, versus the behavior itself.  Your ability to empathize with employees will enable you to get to the root cause of the problem and help to minimize resistance!

Second Step: Plan your presentation!

1.  Identify the possible sources of resistance to the change.

  • Think of the employees you work with. What would their concerns be?  Your
    job is to identify and plan to address as many of those concerns as possible,
    without relying on the employees to ask.
  • For example, sometimes resistance stems from fear that the employee won’t have the skills that will allow them to accomplish the change.  Your goal is to
    assure them that you will provide them with the tools necessary to do the job
    and you’ll give them enough time to adapt to the change.

2. Answer the following questions when preparing for your presentation:

  • What’s in it for the employees?  How will the change make their jobs better?
  • What’s in it for the organization?
  • How does the organization’s success affect the employees?
  • How long will the change take to implement? Changes that are broken into smaller steps are less threatening to employees.

3.  Try to imagine all of the questions that employees may have regarding the change you need to implement and identify your answers to these questions so that you can incorporate them into your presentation.

4.  Define what success looks like once it’s implemented.  This will help the group measure they’re own success in implementing the needed changes.

Third Step: Facilitate the group & minimize resistance!

1.   Set the ground rules:  Examples of common ground rule is the rule that decisions are reached by a consensus.

2.  Smile, keep your arms opened, lean forward as someone is speaking and make eye contact!  If you aren’t sincere, any attempts to “look” sincere with some gestures won’t be effective!

3.  Explain the overall objective.  If someone has an idea that can advance the overall objective of the change you’re trying to implement, be opened to it.  Ask your team if they anticipate obstacles that you may have overlooked and get feedback on how to overcome them.

4.  When people feel “defensive” they employ all sorts of “defense mechanisms” to
defend their ego.  In my experience, this is one of the greatest barriers to productive and positive communication.  The following are some of the many possible communication techniques that you can employ to minimize defensive behavior immediately!

  • Be quiet and listen, unless asking questions to clarify the person’s position. If you’re thinking about what to say in response, or have formed an opinion without listening to their entire statement, you aren’t listening.  As someone is speaking, don’t express your opinion verbally or non-verbally.
  • Don’t ask leading questions that lead the person to have to agree with your position.  Leading questions are usually statements of opinions that end with the question “right?”  For example, “Well, actually, you came in late because you were out late the night before, right?”  Usually, these statements combine a little bit of truth, without context, and breed defensiveness! They usually serve the purpose of validating the speakers pre-conceived notions versus advancing the goal of getting more information!
  • Don’t be accusatory.  Frame statements using the term “I” instead of “you”.
  • Be patient!
  • Don’t criticize ideas publicly.  This will be seen as punishment to those who had the courage to speak up in front of the group.
  • Don’t trivialize concerns discussed by the group.  Ignoring some issues, no matter how trivial they seem to you, may prevent the group from being able to move
    onto issues that will directly impact their ability to meet goals.

5.  Accept constructive criticism!  You may learn that you misspoke, or sent messages you didn’t intend to.  Accept responsibility for miscommunication. It is likely that you will be remembered more for how you handle criticism, than the issue that lead to the criticism in the first place!

6.  Mediate!  Highlight the positive aspects of differing opinions.  Ask questions
and seek clarification when employees seem to be in a disagreement.  Enforce the ground rules so that all feel safe and comfortable speaking.

7.  Celebrate mistakes!  Emphasize the lessons learned from prior mistakes.  This
encourages people to feel safe and allows people to work optimally.

8.  Allow controlled risk taking. Allow employees to “try it their way” if at all possible.  Ensure that all employees know how success will be measured, so that they can determine the extent to which their own ideas are successful.

As a leader, you may not be able to eliminate employee resistance, but you certainly can work to minimize it and capitalize on it when it presents itself!  When resistance
is channeled the right way, and with sincerity, it can present opportunities that allow you to build a high-performing team while building credibility as an effective leader in your organization!  ©Copyright Denise Scotti-Smith 2012.  All Rights Reserved.


About Denise Scotti-Smith PHR

Denise Scotti-Smith PHR, SHRM-CP is the Founder and President of Mission Accomplished Consulting, LLC. As a Certified Executive & Leadership Coach, she provides coaching, risk management services, consulting, outsourcing and on-site management training. With a Master's in Organizational & Human Resource Management and about 30 years of leadership experience, she specializes in risk management, organizational development, strategic planning, leadership & employee development, change management, operations management, employee relations, and HR law. For more information, go to http://www.missionllc.org.
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