Resistance Is Changing — And Your Change Management Approach Needs to Change With It

By Katrina McCullough | McCullough Management

Quick — when your phone pushes a software update, do you read the developer notes?

Most of us don't. We tap "update," wait a few minutes, and figure it out.

But here's where most organizations get it wrong: they're still managing change as if employees are fighting the technology itself.

In many cases, they're not.

That casual, almost instinctive relationship with technology change is telling us something important about how the workforce has shifted. But here's what it doesn't mean: it doesn't mean change is easy, or that your employees aren't struggling when a new system lands in their lap.

It means the reason they struggle has changed.

And if your change management approach hasn't caught up, you can burn through an entire change management budget on resistance that doesn't exist.

Change managers often arrive with a resistance strategy already loaded before they've taken the time to actually understand the organization, the culture, or the people.

When you're looking for resistance, you tend to find it — even when what's actually in the room is excitement, concern, or fatigue. That's a problem worth examining.

WHAT THE FRAMEWORK WAS BUILT TO SOLVE — AND WHAT HAS SHIFTED

Change management as a formal discipline was born in an era of genuine, high-friction resistance to workplace technology. That resistance was real, widespread, and warranted a structured response. The frameworks that followed gave organizations a common language and a logical sequence for bringing people through change.

That was the right tool for that moment.

But the workforce of 2025 looks fundamentally different.

Today, five generations are working side by side — each with a distinct relationship to technology. The trajectory is clear:

• 0% of Gen Z employees react with annoyance or resistance when a new tool is introduced at work

• 55% of Millennials describe themselves as excited and eager to try new workplace tools

• 65% of employees are excited to use AI at work (Gartner, 2025)

By 2034, Millennials and Gen Z will make up the majority of the workforce. Younger employees who have spent years working on outdated systems aren't dreading the new one — they can't get it soon enough.

They've grown up with technology that talks to itself. At work, they're stuck with systems that require double entry, manual aggregation of reports that should populate automatically, and workflows that depend on people simply because the data doesn't flow.

That's not a minor inconvenience. It's a daily tax on their time and patience.

And beyond fixing daily frustration, modern systems give people something legacy technology never could — the opportunity to build skills that travel with them, work with tools the market values, and grow professionally while doing their job.

A new system that fixes that isn't a threat. It's a relief. But a lower resistance floor doesn't mean a smoother road. It just means the friction has moved.

THREE VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE ARE SITTING IN YOUR ALL-HANDS

One of the most persistent and costly habits in change management is treating the room as a single group.

It never is.

In a large-scale implementation I've been working on, we ran surveys throughout the project. The results were consistent: excitement was high. People wanted the new system.

But when we asked what they felt could cause the project to be unsuccessful, training came up every single time.

Not the change itself. The process of getting there.

That gap — between enthusiasm for the outcome and anxiety about the journey — is what change managers need to be reading.

This is where the approach has to shift. Not starting with a framework, but starting with a read of the room.

In practice, there are three groups sitting in front of you.

The Excited

They've been waiting for this.

They're frustrated with the old system and ready to move. But some aren't just relieved it's going away, they're hungry for what comes next. A new implementation is a chance to lead something, to become the internal expert, to build skills in a system the organization is betting on. They see professional growth, visibility, and the kind of initiative that doesn't come along often.

That hunger is one of the most valuable things in a room full of people navigating change — and it's almost always underestimated.

They don't need to be convinced. They need to be handed something to own.

The Concerned (Most of Your Room)

This group is almost always the largest — and the most misread.

They are not opposed to the change. They are concerned about the process:

Did we solve the right problem with the right solution?

Will I be trained properly?

Will I know what's coming and when?

Will I be able to do my job during the transition?

Concern is not resistance. It's a signal that people don't have enough clarity.

When concern shows up, the response isn't persuasion, it's specificity - not: Why are doing this project?

• Why did we choose this solution? And who helped us make that decision?

• What training will look like?

• When it will happen?

• Who is delivering it?

• How support will work during the transition?

This is where FAQs, targeted sessions, and clear training plans matter more than high-level messaging.

Real Resistance (Less Common — But Real)

Actual resistance exists — it's just less common than most frameworks assume.

In practice, it usually comes from one of four places. And these are not variations of the same problem. They are fundamentally different situations that require fundamentally different responses.

Fear of job loss. The most emotionally charged form of resistance, and more acute right now than at almost any point in the history of enterprise technology. With AI accelerating across every industry, 56% of employees worry about their job security alongside new technology (EY, 2025). This cannot be overcome with a communication plan. It requires a direct, honest conversation about actual role impact — delivered by someone with credibility in the organization.

Significant job change. The role isn't disappearing but it's changing so fundamentally it no longer resembles what the employee signed up for. There's often grief here — a sense of loss for the expertise, the relationships, the identity built around the old way of working. Acknowledging that loss is usually where the conversation needs to start.

Preference for the status quo. Some employees genuinely believe the old system works. They've built workarounds, developed expertise, and found ways to be effective. To them, the new system isn't solving a problem — it's creating one. The response here isn't persuasion. It's involvement. These are exactly the people who should be in requirements sessions.

Change fatigue. This is the most consistently misread form of resistance — because it looks like opposition to your project when it has almost nothing to do with it. In 2016, the average employee experienced two planned enterprise changes per year. By 2022 that number had risen to ten. Over that same period, Gartner tracked employee support for enterprise change falling from 74% to 43%. That isn't a more resistant workforce. It's a more saturated one. The intervention isn't a better communication plan — it's an honest conversation about pacing and what can reasonably be asked of people right now.

Treating all four the same way is where change management loses traction, credibility, and ultimately, adoption.

CONFUSING CONCERN WITH RESISTANCE IS A COSTLY MISTAKE

The misread happens fast, and the consequences compound.

A change manager who arrives assuming a resistant workforce will design communications that defend the change rather than demystify the process. They'll spend time and political capital building resistance-mitigation strategies for employees who were never resisting in the first place.

And in doing so, they'll often fail to address the one thing those employees actually needed: clarity about what comes next.

This is also where change management breaks down when it operates too far from the project itself.

If you're not in the room during requirements, design, and testing, you lose the ability to answer the only questions people actually care about: what will this look like for me, and when?

Effective change management isn't parallel to the project — it's embedded in it.

Concern is not resistance. It is an invitation to communicate better, train earlier, and show people that the project was built with their reality in mind.

THE RIGHT QUESTION CHANGES EVERYTHING

The old question was: will they accept this change?

That was the right question for a workforce that defaulted to resistance.

The better question for 2025 is: who is in the room — and what do they need?

Instead of starting with a full change management plan, start here:

• Who is excited and ready to move?

• Who is concerned and needs clarity?

• Is there actual resistance — or just a lack of information?

• What else are these teams already dealing with?

Then respond accordingly.

Give the excited ownership. Give the concerned clarity — especially around training, timing, and support. Understand resistance before trying to solve it.

The tools don't change. How and when you use them does.

And just as important — you don't always need the full set of tools. Not every project requires a full communication roadshow, a layered engagement strategy, and a complete training rollout designed from scratch.

In many organizations, there are already communication channels people trust, rhythms they're used to, and leaders they listen to. Ignoring those in favor of building something new can create more friction, not less.

So the question shifts from: What does the framework say we should do?

To

What does this group of people actually need, and what here has already worked?

The approach has to start with listening, not planning.

Because if you get the read wrong at the start, you'll spend enormous energy solving a problem that was never there to begin with.

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