Employee Alignment and Education (Communicating with Internal Stakeholders)
Adapted from Hultman
Franco
Guilliani was a new field-service utility worker whose manager was Maria Marciano. At the job Franco had worked prior to his current
position, he was an active union member and had bitter arguments with management over
wages and working conditions. He had been
fired for this conduct. Because of this
experience, Franco believed that management was against labor in any organization and would do
little to meet their needs. He also believed
that labor had to fight for any improvements in working conditions. Since this had been true in the past, he concluded
that it would be true under Maria’s management.
Maria
noticed that Franco was somewhat hostile toward her from the beginning. This didn’t become an issue until Maria
established a committee to recommend improvements in labor-management relations. Franco opposed the concept of the committee and led
a group that tried to convince laborers that his committee was an attempt by management to
placate employees without really dealing with the issues.
Maria felt that Franco misunderstood her motivation and decided to talk with him.
Unfortunately, the meeting went badly. Franco
was so convinced that he was right that he wouldn’t listen to Maria.
Because
of this, Maria decided that she needed to form another strategy to deal with growing
resistance toward the committee. Maria
realized that Franco couldn’t be talked out of his beliefs, and the only viable
solution would be for the committee to provide concrete, tangible results. Therefore, she ignored Franco’s opposing group
and worked on accomplishing definite goals through the committee. After a few months, it became increasingly clear
that Maria was genuinely interested in improving working conditions, drawing upon
employees’ input. As major reforms were
instituted, resistance toward the committee dwindled rapidly. Soon, only Franco opposed the committee, and even
he softened. It was difficult for Franco to
maintain his beliefs while facing the reality of Maria’s actions. Franco, through still skeptical about managers, no
longer functioned as a rebel.
Exercise: The case study provided an example of how employees
can resist change. Think of a similar example
of one of your team members who resists change. How
does this person show resistance? What
does the resister say to you and to others? What effect does this person’s resistance
have on the rest of the working team? What
have you done to address the resistance?
