Addressing middle managers resistance to change
When working with a bigger organisational change — such as an Agile Transformation — I have observed that the biggest resistance comes from middle managers. In recent work I did with a department we spent a lot of efforts working with these managers, and learnt the hard way why many of our assumptions were wrong.
Talking change with upper management is easy. Most of them see the benefit of doing the change. It is cheap for them to support the change, because often they don’t have to do anything differently. They are attracted by the promises of greater speed of delivery, retention of people and the hero status of successfully moving the status quo. Sometimes they pay lip service to the change, supporting it in words, but not in actions. They point to the middle managers as the people that really have to change how they work.
Talking change with teams is easy. They are often pulling for it, and want to work in a different way. They can often see the direct benefits of the changes and are attracted by the promises of a better work environment, autonomy and reduced waste. They point to the middle managers as the people that really have to change for things to be different.
Talking change with middle managers is really hard. They have often grown up in a system that is optimized for keeping the status quo. They are measured on it and rewarded for it. A big change means taking risks and investing in things that might not pay off. They are not in control of the change as managers are not really creating outcomes (teams are). A common reaction to change is to force it on others (teams) and send blame upwards (top management). When instead they are asked to change their leadership style and give up power, resistance is natural. They have fought, sometimes a whole career, to get into their position. Suddenly there is a threat that might change the whole system, rendering many of their efforts useless. Even worse, there might not be a place for them in the new way of working.
In the particular case I mentioned above we spent a lot of efforts helping middle managers setting direction, creating vision and finding their place. We invested in this, only to find out that everything changed after a few months. This happened again and again. However, in this change the teams were intact. They kept working with more or less the same tasks and goals. Top management was intact, the overall goal and vision of the department did not change. The storm, and therefore the resistance, was in the middle of the organisation.
Learning from this experience I am now investing my efforts differently. While I think it is really important that everone feel safe in the big change that a transformation brings, I focus on top management and the teams. The biggest resistance still comes from middle management, but working with both teams and top managements helps me lower the bar for change. It also moves status quo to a tipping point where middle management have no other option than joining the efforts. In some rare cases I have found change agents and advocates amongst the middle managers, and I make sure to support that person. I also help middle management differentiate between perceived rules (reporting formats, corporate standards) and the boundaries of the change (the systems we need to keep running, problems we need to solve).
Have you observed similar patterns when running a change initiative in a large organisation? How did you invite middle managers to the change initative?
