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Resistance Decoder
Log what you actually heard and it works out which of the seven types each one is, gives you the first move for each, and builds the sponsor reframe with your real numbers in it.
Resistance is data, not defiance.
When someone pushes back, they are telling you something about your change. The skill is decoding which thing. Treating all resistance as an attitude problem is both wrong and useless — it points to no action except pressure, which makes it worse.
The seven types
1. “I don’t understand what you want”
Sounds like: vagueness, agreeing then not doing, asking the same question repeatedly, doing something adjacent but wrong. Actually: an Awareness/clarity gap, not resistance at all. Do: Target Behaviour Definition. Script the critical move. Most “resistance” is this.
2. “This costs me something you haven’t acknowledged”
Sounds like: “it’s fine in theory but…”, “you don’t understand how it works on the ground”, raising edge cases. Actually: a real cost — time, effort, status, autonomy, exposure — that nobody has named. Do: name the cost out loud, first, before they do. “This adds about four minutes per call and we haven’t taken anything off you yet. Here’s what we’re removing.” Acknowledgement is disproportionately effective; denial is disproportionately damaging.
3. “I’ll look incompetent”
Sounds like: deflection, humour, sudden focus on other priorities, delegation to a junior, aggressive questioning of the tool. Actually: loss of hard-won mastery. Extremely common in tech rollouts, and hits your most experienced people hardest — who are usually your most influential. Do: protect status. Give experts a role in the new world early — design input, super-user, trainer. Never let a respected expert be publicly a beginner. See Bridges Transition Model.
4. “I’ve seen this before”
Sounds like: “we tried this in 2019”, “this’ll blow over”, polite compliance with zero energy. Actually: rational learned behaviour. Waiting it out has worked for them before. Do: acknowledge the history explicitly. Then show something that’s structurally different this time — a switched-off legacy system, a leader visibly changing, a decision that cost something. Words won’t do it; only evidence.
5. “This isn’t for me / it’s being done to me”
Sounds like: “who decided this?”, “nobody asked us”, procedural objections. Actually: loss of agency. Do: give away real decisions. Not “what colour should the intranet page be” — actual design choices. Co-design is the most reliable generator of commitment there is, and it’s usually cheaper than the comms campaign it replaces.
6. “This conflicts with what you’re also asking me to do”
Sounds like: “which do you want?”, raising the target, going quiet then reverting under pressure. Actually: a genuine systemic contradiction. Targets, incentives or another initiative pull the other way. Do: this is your job. Take the contradiction upward and get it resolved. If a leader won’t resolve it, that is the answer, and people will read it correctly. See Challenging Upward — Scripts.
7. “Your design is bad”
Sounds like: specific, technical, persistent objections that survive explanation. Actually: they’re right. Do: ⭐ This is the most valuable resistance you will get and the easiest to mishandle. Test it: can they describe a specific scenario where it fails? Have others independently raised it? Does it survive when you walk the process yourself? If yes — change the design, and say publicly who told you. Nothing builds credibility faster than a visible design change credited to a frontline objector. It converts your sharpest critic and demonstrates to everyone that raising problems works.
The decoder table
| What you hear | Most likely type | First move |
|---|---|---|
| “I don’t have time” | 2 (unacknowledged cost) | Find out what comes off their plate |
| “This won’t work here” | 7 or 4 | Ask for the specific scenario |
| “We tried this before” | 4 | Acknowledge; show what’s structurally different |
| “It’s fine, whatever you need” (flat) | 4 or 5 | Compliance without commitment — probe privately |
| “Who signed this off?” | 5 | Agency; involve them in a real decision |
| “The old way was quicker” | 2 or 7 | Time it yourself. They may be right |
| “My team won’t accept it” | 3 (their own concern, displaced) | Ask what they think, privately |
| Silence in the room, noise in the corridor | Low trust (D-score) | Change Readiness Assessment |
| Sudden interest in edge cases | 2 or 3 | Name the cost; protect status |
Three rules
- Never diagnose resistance in public. Do it in a one-to-one. Publicly labelling someone resistant guarantees the position hardens.
- The loudest objector is rarely the biggest risk. Loud is engaged. The quiet compliance of a whole shift is more dangerous, and much harder to see.
- You have to actually change something. If nothing about the plan ever changes in response to feedback, people learn that consultation is theatre — and they only need to learn it once.
For your sponsor
When a leader says “we’re getting a lot of resistance,” reframe:
“Let’s split it. Some of it is people not being clear what we’re asking — that’s on us and it’s fixable this week. Some of it is a real cost we haven’t acknowledged, which we should name openly. And some of it is people telling us the design has a flaw. I’d rather find out now. Can I bring you the three specific ones that I think are right?”
This moves the conversation from character to design, keeps the leader constructive, and positions you as someone who brings solutions rather than complaints.
→ Bridges Transition Model · Objection Handling Bank · Force Field Analysis
← Back to the Behavioural Change Toolkit