Why We Resist Change

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The boss faces an existential crisis.

The new hire presents themselves at the expiration of their 90 days of observation.

‘Hey boss. Your company/department/team. I’ve identified opportunities for change.’

The boss hears: ‘Hey boss. Grab an archives box from the mail room. For your stress ball, novelty basketball hoop, and photo of the wife and kids. For your bathroom renovation. For your last ten years. For your identity. For all the plans you had for the next ten years. For your worthless compass. For the earth beneath you.’

Every day we turn up to work beyond our first three months, our DNA starts to meld with the DNA of our employer. We start developing Stockholm Syndrome. Our excuse that we’re new passes its use by date. We suppress our concerns about the way things are done. Our 20/20 vision starts to blur into what will eventually become wilful blindness. Sure, we allow ourselves to eye-roll with a trusted peer. Then one day we leave a professional development seminar determined to make changes.

We call meetings, brainstorm, send memos, and make some cosmetic fixes. It feels good. We’ve regained some agency. We’re making the place better. We recruit some new people. We back their new ideas. We’re part of the solution now. We’re shaping the organisation. We can see improvement. We’re rewarded. Promoted. Seen.

‘Hey boss. Your department. I’ve identified opportunities for change.’

A stranger dangles your shiny innovations and ego over the pit of the rotting past.

All change is a condemnation of the judgement and labour of the custodians who stewarded the organisation to here. It says: ‘You weren’t smart or attentive enough to realise this isn’t good enough.’ Or ‘You saw the deficiencies but lacked the competence, courage, or energy to address them. You are not good enough.’

The longer someone has presided over the organisation, the more they stand to lose if they accept the need for change. Thus, the more they resist - actively or passively.

If there’s change, they are redundant. A wiped hard drive. A wheel-less car on bricks.

This dynamic is happening in some form in every organisation at all levels. People investing energy on inertia, on resistance, and on going nowhere. Meetings. Papers. Committees. Consultations. Working Parties. Training. Consulting. Recruiting. Restructuring. All designed to avoid confronting the brutal truth that what we made yesterday is not good enough for today. That we are not good enough. That all our labour and sacrifice will be bulldozed and crushed into dust. That we are dust.

For over twenty years after his retirement and until his death, Wesfarmers invited my Dad to an annual ex-employees lunch. The boss would make a speech, reminding those current employees present what they owed to people like my Dad. The boss would then propose a toast, and the employees would rise, raise their glasses and acknowledge the debt they and Wesfarmers owed to their predecessors like Reg Hill. My Dad loved his annual lunch. We knew when the day was approaching and after it had been. He looked forward to Wesfarmers remembering him.

Teams, departments, and organisations should establish meaningful and authentic rituals proclaiming, ‘The King is dead! Long live the King!’

If only because one day, we will be the one being fêted.