by 
Futurists should expect that their clients, or the clients of their clients in particular, will be perceived as “resistant” to change. If this is a revelation, you probably have not been doing the work long enough, or you have an excellent knack for picking clients. It is not uncommon for futurists to get together and share war stories of how difficult it is get clients to “see the [foresight] light.” There can be a healthy aspect to venting, in particular if it leads to a discussion of what worked. And an unhealthy one in which we might be guilty of blaming the victim.
So…..it’s time to stop talking about “resistance” if it’s somehow abnormal. It’s time to stop being surprised by it. Not only should we expect it, we should understand it. For years I’ve used a simple 2×2 image to characterize the reception to foresight/change in organizations. In a nutshell, there a few champions or translators (frogs), a few hostile resistors (vultures), there is a small community of support (lemmings), and the vast majority of people in the organizations are neutral or opportunistic (rats).
The rats will view foresight and the change it suggests through the lens of self-interest: does this help me or not? It is completely natural that the bar for foresight being perceived as “helping me” is high – it is much easier for most of us to stay the same than it is change. Change involves risk. It is natural to be hesitant to change. As futurists, we are asking people to change, therefore asking them to take risk. The burden is on us to make the case for change compelling enough to be enough to overcome the risk.
Is part of our problem that we fail to make a compelling enough case for change? And then we blame the client for “resistance?”
At the recent APF’s Professional Development Seminar on a panel discussion on Best Practices in Foresight, I was moved to claim “Embrace the Resistance.” Not only should we expect it, we understand it, acknowledge it, and work with it in building our case for change – in other words we embrace it. Andy Hines
Hi Andy
I love your graphic and use it in my ‘back to work’ sessions in my workshops, and agree that we should factor client resistance in as part of our work approach.
I do wonder though whether it is our job to make a compelling enough case for change (ie here’s why you should change) or whether it is to work with people in organisations to recognise and shape the case for change in their context as a result of the process we take them through (ah, here’s why we should change). Of course, these are probably two sides of the same coin.
And resistance of any type emerges from deep within our worldviews and our brains. So embracing resistance in our work
must be about working with people to help them shift worldviews via the process we run with them. Be interested in your thoughts.
Maree
As always, good thoughtful comments and question, Marie. I don’t think it is our job to foist change on those who don’t want to — as if we have the the way, the light, and the truth and they don’t. I completely agree with your point on shaping the case for change together!
I should say first that “resistance” comes in many forms and shows up in many ways. Sometimes it’s resisting the look to the future in general. Sometimes it’s “denying” the results of a study or project. Sometimes its not acting on results that suggests a need for change because it’s too difficult. The point I’m trying to get after (work in progress) is when this “resistance” appears that we move toward it rather than away from it. Why is it emerging? What can we do to work with it? I remember a project where a group was publicly claiming to be all gung-ho about change, and then when it came time to choose which changes to make, all the old passive resistance tricks came out. My recommendation to the client was that this was actually a good learning, and we need to slow our process down and build a case for change. Change sounded good until it affected my unit/job etc. Instead of claiming that the organization members were somehow against the future and change — no, they were against specific changes being proposed that would affect them and didn’t see why they should do it.