Change Leadership: Engage People, Overcome Resistance

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Resistance to change is usually described as an obstacle. It is better read as information. People resist a specific thing, for reasons that are often correct, and nobody asked them.

The initiatives that fail are rarely the ones people opposed. They are the ones nobody argued with and nobody did.

Where change actually stalls

The rationale was excellent and aimed entirely at the rational part of a person. The urgency was announced rather than felt, so it registered as one more corporate message. Managers were told to communicate a decision they did not participate in and do not believe, and their teams could tell within a sentence. The quick wins were skipped as a distraction from the real work, so nobody ever saw evidence the thing could function.

And six months in, the change is technically implemented, the old behaviour has returned, and everybody has agreed not to mention it.

The model, and the half of it that gets skipped

Forty lessons. Six on change management by Kotter: the eight mistakes, the eight steps, building genuine urgency, the change team, vision, quick wins, and anchoring the result in culture. Including the rider, elephant and path model, which explains why explanation alone almost never moves anyone, and what to do instead.

Then eight on organisational development, which is the diagnostic apparatus underneath. Selling the mandate, assessing an organisation through observation, interviews, surveys and existing data, cause-effect analysis, choosing between individual, team, process and organisation-wide interventions, and evaluating results with Kirkpatrick and a balanced scorecard rather than with anecdotes.

Communication, conflict, engagement and culture

Then six on communication as a designed process: audit, behaviour-focused goals, audience segmentation by what each group stands to lose, channel mix, managers as distribution, delivering unwelcome news, and measuring whether conduct actually changed.

Then six on conflict, which a change does not create so much as reveal: escalation dynamics, the resolution algorithm, structural causes, political conflict, prevention and mediation.

Then eight on engagement — Gallup Q12, the twelve elements, three generations of engagement practice, employee experience, and how to give managers something specific to do instead of a score. And six on culture, which is where a change either lodges permanently or quietly reverses: describing culture as observable behaviour, rituals, hiring for fit, launch, and measurement.

Who is teaching this

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals, running changes that landed and a few that did not, which taught me more.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all course materials

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Practical assignments and real business cases

• A section with additional courses, tools and resources

Start with the resistance

Take the change you are running and ask three people who are least enthusiastic what they think it will cost them. Not whether they agree — what it costs them. The answers are usually specific, usually accurate, and usually the thing your plan does not address. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.