Why people in your organization reject new things
By: Vadim Feldman
Tags: Identity, Organizational Change, Change Management, Resistance To Change, Team

Introducing new behaviours and practices in organizations are sometimes met with resistance. One reason for this is that the change collides with the identity of the individuals, specifically the social norms that define their interactions and behaviours.

In the previous article, I covered the adoption threshold; a measurement of how inclined a group is to adopt a new behaviour. In this article, we take a look at willingness to change and how peoples’ attitudes towards new behaviours and practices affect the adoption of them.

Willingness to change is a social perspective on change management for changing behaviours, skills or practices. It’s a way of understanding a team’s resistance to change and how complex a change initiative will be.

I will cover three scenarios that might happen when introducing new behaviours:

The behaviour fit right in.

People will accept the behaviour but will wait for others to adopt first.

People will reject the behaviour and actively resist the change. At least at first.

Willingness to change

If the individuals in a group are not willing to change, the group will have a low willingness to change. But the groups’ willingness to change is not necessarily the sum of its parts, since people in groups affect each other in complex patterns. Patterns of willingness to change can often be traced in specific roles (e.g. project managers) who identify with each other and set expectations on how to behave. In organisations and teams with a strong culture, the behaviours might be shaped by the shared identity of its members, e.g. “we are an innovative company”.

Three zones of willingness to change

When introducing new ways of working in the organisation, we need to understand these norms and mental patterns, to detect the attitudes towards the behaviours we want to adopt. Simply put: if we understand the specific group’- willingness to make the specific change, we have a higher chance of success.

In organisations and teams with a strong culture, the behaviours might be shaped by the shared identity of its members, e.g. “we are an innovative company”.

Moving on, I will outline the willingness to change on a continuum with three zones. This model is freely based upon the research on how ideas that are too far from our current mindset get rejected by groups (Berger 2020) and on the role of social norms and schemas (Bicchieri & McNally 2015) in changing behaviours.

Zone 1: The new practice is socially expected

The first zone covers behaviours and practices that are socially expected by the group. People in the team expect the behaviour and will not raise any eyebrows or think that it’s strange in any way. The practice, behaviour or method is new, but it’s not that different, or it’s very different, but it’s long sought for.

The zone of socially expected practices

Lets, for example, take Charlie, a sales associate at a local dealership. Her manager introduces a new way to store sales documents. She does that sometimes. Maybe Charlie doesn’t see the point to change, but she expects changes like this to happen once in a while, finds it to be business as usual and makes the change.

The new practice most likely requires only minor adjustments to perceived barriers and the team context and can be made without breaking any norms or conflicts with the current group identity.

Zone 2: The new practice is socially accepted (“If it works, then maybe.”)

Ways of working that fall into the second zone are considered to be socially accepted, and people might see how new practices fit their norms and identity.

The zone of socially accepted practices

Let’s get back to our sales associate Charlie. Now, someone from the head office had decided to change the sales process to be more “agile” and “lean”. Charlie likes it; she has always seen herself as flexible and customer-focused. However, she knows that not everyone in her role feels that way, and she approaches this with careful optimism. She waits until some of her peers adopt before she does, minimising the risk of looking foolish if the initiative fails.

Implementing a behaviour that falls into this zone is still not straightforward. It will require helping people adopt new behaviours. Most likely, the new ways of working don’t conflict with current norms, but instead extends its definition and can potentially be part of the teams’ identity when implemented. People in the group might not object to it, but they will only do it if enough people do it.

Zone 3: The new practice is socially rejected. — (“Not even if it works.”)

Some behaviours lie outside the groups’ identity and will cause friction with the team’s current social norms. They are socially rejected or deviant behaviours and might be met with attitudes like “People like me don’t do things like that.”. Practices that fall into this category will meet significant resistance to be adopted and pose a threat to the change initiative.

The zone of socially rejected practices

After the recent process change, the CEO for the branch Charlie is working for, communicates that from now on, the majority of customer interactions should be automated and handled online. Charlie is furious; she loves meeting and helping people; it is part of who she is and the reason she took this job in the first place. This initiative (no matter if it’s great or not) is the direct opposite of that, and she decides (consciously or unconsciously) to resist this change as much as she can. Her attitude affects the rest of the team, and few of them make an effort to change.

[…] socially rejected or deviant behaviours … might be met with attitudes like “People like me don’t do things like that.”

When it comes to implementing behaviours and ways of working that have a high level of resistance and goes against the team’s culture and identity, it might be easier to select another behaviour entirely or create a whole new social context, than trying to push through the change.