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Change champions tend to pay attention to the upside of their future vision and the downside of today’s status quo. For example, those who are passionate about customers are hyper-focused on building relationships for the long term. To them, resistors seem greedy or blind.
Conversely, resistors pay attention to the downside of the change and the upside of the current state. They see the risks. When change champions refuse to discuss an issue, resistors assume they are hopelessly naive or sinister actors trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. To them, it can seem fiscally reckless to divert attention from the financial aspects of the business to softer issues such as customer experience. Which of them is right? “They both are,” says Jacobs. “But each is only half-right.”
In the worst-case scenario, “us versus them” thinking devolves into factions that compete but never really engage.
The solution is to reframe how we think about resistance. Rather than assuming critical thinkers are resistors, we would do better to treat them as guardians. Guardians see what needs to be protected, and the trust that can be destroyed by a broken promise or a shortcut. Who else will ask the hard questions?
Via David Hain
