You’ve achieved the groundwork—outlined the technique, launched the transformation, briefed your groups. The shift is underway. However weeks or months later, one thing’s off. Progress has slowed. Enthusiasm has dimmed. Resistance has reemerged in new types. And your change momentum has stalled.
This situation is extra widespread than most CEOs understand. Research constantly present that 60% to 70% of organizational change initiatives fail. One key purpose? Resistance doesn’t finish after kickoff—it evolves. Leaders usually deal with resistance like an early excessive hurdle to clear. In actuality, it’s a recurring sign that change is being processed, challenged, and internalized. If left unaddressed, these successive waves of resistance can quietly derail momentum. However when engaged strategically, they will speed up adoption and strengthen the transformation.
Understanding the Cycle of Successive Resistance
At BTS, we’ve labored with management groups at dozens of Fortune 500 firms navigating large-scale transformations—starting from technique pivots and post-M&A integration to structural realignment. In almost each case, we see a recurring blind spot: resistance that returns simply when leaders suppose they’ve moved previous it.
Why? As a result of folks don’t course of change unexpectedly. They expertise it in waves. Every new wave of realization—how the change impacts their workforce, their workload, their relevance—sparks contemporary reactions. What might seem to be regression is commonly a deeper layer of processing primarily based on a deeper degree of understanding.
For instance, a software program consumer present process a serious pricing and go-to-market shift initially appeared to have all the precise items in place. Their planning was thorough, and so they had been attentive to what totally different worker teams wanted to achieve their “new” jobs. However because the transition crossed fiscal years, a contemporary wave of resistance emerged, particularly among the many gross sales workforce, whose compensation could be affected otherwise throughout two fiscal intervals. Moderately than treating this as surprising pushback, the management workforce anticipated these ripple results by introducing well-timed checkpoints earlier than quarter- and year-end. In addition they adjusted reporting processes to assist sellers observe each previous and new outcomes extra simply. This degree of proactive transparency and help helped mitigate confusion and eased the pressure of transition.
Within the early phases of change, resistance usually surfaces as questions or skepticism: “Will this truly occur?” or “What does this imply for me?” This marks the conceptual section—the place persons are nonetheless attempting to make sense of the massive concept, testing its logic and feasibility.
Because the change shifts into sensible territory—when folks begin utilizing the brand new techniques, working in new constructions, or serving prospects otherwise—further limitations emerge. This resistance is extra operational: it exhibits up as friction, bottlenecks, or workarounds. Workers now imagine the change is actual, and so they’re bumping into what it truly takes to ship on it.
Lastly, within the dependable section, resistance could be tougher to identify however simply as consequential. It exhibits up in refined methods: underuse of recent instruments, reversion to previous habits throughout strain, or inconsistency throughout groups. At this stage, the change is technically reside, however the group hasn’t totally internalized it but. This can be essentially the most harmful section.
This cycle is the place many CEOs inadvertently lose momentum. They deal with resistance as an issue to unravel originally of a metamorphosis, moderately than a strategic sign that should be constantly decoded and addressed all through. Recognizing this development and anticipating the distinctive types resistance takes at every section allows leaders to interact it as a essential driver of long-term adoption—not a disruption to it.
Some of the highly effective reframes I’ve seen amongst senior leaders is the shift from controlling resistance to studying from it. At a healthcare know-how firm, I labored with over 200 leaders to unpack this mindset. My workforce requested them: “What information does participating with staff’ resistance give us?” Their solutions had been illuminating. Resistance, they found, uncovered communication gaps, revealed which groups wanted extra help, surfaced belief points, and pointed to management the behaviors that wanted to vary.
Outfitted with this perception, leaders adopted a discovery posture. As an alternative of defending selections, they used probing inquiries to discover hesitation and uncertainty. They realized to deal with resistance not as dissent to handle—however as an invite to align, make clear and adapt.
The Management Mindset Shifts That Unlock Progress
As a CEO, you’re doubtless not listening to each pulse of resistance firsthand. However your position in how resistance is framed and responded to makes the distinction between stalled change and sustained transformation. Right here’s what that shift appears like:
• From directing change to teaching at essential moments. In a world of ongoing disruption, there’s no end line, simply the subsequent shift. CEOs who present up like coaches—checking in, adjusting performs, encouraging studying—construct momentum that lasts past any single initiative.
• From seeing resistance as an issue to recognizing it as suggestions. Resistance is information. It reveals what’s unclear, what feels dangerous, and what wants reinforcement.
• From assuming understanding to anticipating realization moments. Most individuals want to listen to a message 7 to 10 occasions earlier than it sticks. And even then, they might have to see the way it applies to them particularly. Count on it, plan for it, normalize it. Early in my profession, a smart government advised me one thing that has caught with me even 20 years later: “Whenever you’re uninterested in repeating your self a few change, that’s when persons are simply beginning to hear you.”
Sensible Strikes to Reengage Momentum
Right here’s how CEOs can interact successive resistance with out burning out or backtracking:
1. Identify the sample. Let groups know upfront that questions, reservations, doubts, and different concepts (aka resistance) are anticipated and appreciated, as they display engagement. This reframes the narrative early.
2. Map the standard traps. In my work, the three most typical flashpoints are: compensation adjustments, position/reporting redefinitions, and shifts in expectations. Deal with these explicitly and infrequently.
3. Take heed to what resistance is telling you. What are folks telling you about their frustrations with the change? Is it misalignment, ability gaps, or misplaced incentives? Every pushback is a clue.
4. Talk with rhythmic consistency. Staggered realization requires repeated messaging. Leaders who cascade communication in sync with the cycle keep forward of the dips.
5. Construct resilience as a muscle. Resilience isn’t simply a person trait; it’s an organizational functionality. For CEOs, this implies creating area for ongoing reflection, recalibration, and reinforcement all through the transformation. Quick, common check-ins can function low-friction moments to highlight progress, floor pressure, and mannequin adaptability.
The CEOs who succeed at transformation aren’t those who push the toughest. They’re those who normalize resistance as a part of the method and hold main with intention. They acknowledge the emotional labor concerned and construct techniques to help it.
In a world of nonstop reinvention, your means to interact and decode resistance—over time, in waves—is now not optionally available. It’s a aggressive edge. The extra fluently you interact it, the sooner your group adapts.
