Kanter's ten reasons people resist change, and what to say to each

A 30-person haulage firm in Can Tho decides that from 1 December every delivery must be confirmed on a phone app instead of a paper delivery note. In the briefing, the owner writes down ten different complaints. Should the owner answer all ten with one general pep talk, or with a different reply to each? The firm and the complaints are hypothetical. Kanter's ten reasons people resist change gives ten names, so that you can recognise which fear each complaint is reporting.

What does Kanter say about resistance to change?

According to Rosabeth Moss Kanter, resistance shows up in many forms, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage and outright rebellion. The best tool for leaders of change, she writes, is to understand the predictable, universal sources of resistance in each situation and then strategise around them (Kanter, 2012). She calls the ten sources in the article the ones she has found most common (Kanter, 2012).

The point worth keeping, in my reading of that sentence, is that resistance is predictable. You do not have to wait for it and then be surprised.

What do the ten reasons look like in a 30-person haulage firm?

The method: listen to each complaint, then ask what it is afraid of losing. The middle column below is complaints I made up. The last column gives the response from the framework page, with my own concrete example in brackets.

Two things to bear in mind. First, one complaint can hold two reasons: "who pays for the extra time" is both more work and, if extra work went unpaid last time, a past resentment. Second, the names and responses in the last column come from the library's framework page, and I have not checked them against data. The complaints are mine.

Which reason do you tackle first when all ten arrive at once?

The one that appears most often, and the one that is cheapest to fix. That is my reading, not Kanter's order. Four steps:

1. Write down each complaint verbatim during the first week, without tidying the wording.
2. Assign each complaint to one or two reasons in the table. Count.
3. Pick the top two. For the haulage firm, suppose they are surprise and concerns about competence. The first moves: postpone the cut-over date to ask drivers how confirmation should work, and run two coaching sessions with paper notes and the app side by side.
4. After two weeks, listen again. If the complaints have not changed, you assigned the wrong reason.

This suits a change that still leaves room for small choices about how things are done. It does not suit one where every detail has been fixed and nobody may touch it: the "loss of control" row can then be heard but not answered.

What should you say to the three groups you meet most?

Three sample lines I wrote for the hypothetical firm, each tied to one reason and one action that must come with it:

• Concerns about competence: "Next week you keep writing the paper note as usual, and someone sits beside you to show the app. Two weeks later we switch fully." This only works if the parallel run and the coaching really happen.
• Loss of face: "On paper, this firm has made few mistakes in ten years. I want our longest-serving driver to guide the newcomers in moving that way of working onto the app." It only works if you really do ask that person.
• Past resentments: "Last time we changed shifts I said pay wouldn't change, and that month it dropped. This time I will hand you the pay calculation before we start, so you can check it." It needs a real calculation.

All three are short and name one thing that can be checked. If the owner cannot deliver the accompanying action, the owner should not say the line.

When staff push back on a change that is already decided, what does the list change?

It does not change the decision. When staff resist a change I have already decided, I set the direction from the top, train people face to face and check regularly. In my reading, Kanter's list changes what is said during the training and the checking: the person worried about competence needs coaching, the person complaining of extra work needs to see the effort counted, and the person raising old grievances needs to see them repaired.

In my view, the tenth reason is the clearest case that sends you back to look at the change itself. If the app will be used to dock pay for late deliveries, the complaint "I'm timed to the minute" is not groundless resistance but an accurate reading. The framework's response here is to be honest, quick and fair. I take that to mean telling people in advance what the data will be used for, and keeping to it. If you want to change that rule, change it before roll-out.

How far can you trust this list?

In my reading, it is one expert's experience, not a research result. The public part of the article opens with ten sources she has found "most common" and cites no survey (Kanter, 2012). In the part I read I also found nothing saying the ten are exhaustive or that they do not overlap. So use the list to listen, not to reach a firm diagnosis. If you would rather see resistance as a product of the whole system and not only of the people, the post on four theories of resistance to change has a section on that view (Dent and Goldberg), alongside a diagnostic table for the four individual-level theories.

Going deeper: what did I read, and what did I not?

Kanter's article appeared on the Harvard Business Review site on 25 September 2012 and sits behind a paywall. I could read the opening and the first sentence of the "loss of control" item: change interferes with autonomy and can make people feel they have lost control over their territory (Kanter, 2012). I did not read the other nine items from the original. The names and responses for all ten reasons come from the library's framework page, so the detail inside each item (how Kanter explains it, which examples she uses) is unchecked.

I have not read the Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) article on strategies for reducing resistance, so the post does not use it.

Nor have I read any independent study that tests the list of ten reasons. Treat the table as a list for listening to the people involved, not as evidence that every response works.