The style of leadership and strategic change 3 / 11

Kotter and Schlesinger identified 6 methods of dealing with resistance to change:

Education and Communication

Raising awareness and providing knowledge on the reasons, main outcomes and underlying benefits of the change process

Participation and Involvement

Employees provide a direct input in the decision making process. 

This method reduces the resistance by taking the employees views into account.

In view of such involvement, a lower probability of resistance is likely.

Facilitation and Support

Providing counselling or training to employees to enable them to overcome their fears and anxieties

Negotiation and Agreement

Reaching comprising and bargaining with the people or their representative being impacted by the change

Compensating those who lose out (e.g. redundancy package)

Manipulation and Co-optation

Selective dissemination and distortion of information to convey the more positive benefits of the change.

This method involves the presentation of partial or misleading information to those resisting change or "buying-off" the main individuals who are at the heart of the resistance.

Coercion

Undertaking a compulsory approach by management to implement change.

This involves the use or threat of force to push through the change.

A very last resort if parties are operating from fixed positions and are unwilling to move.