After identifying what causes resistance, you'll want to address these causes. Let's go through these possible causes of resistance again, and identify solutions to them. If there is no agreement to the problem, you can spend more time discussing the problem, and presenting more information. If that doesn't help, and if you have authority over those who disagree, use that authority. If you don't have direct authority over them, you can engage your superiors or others who do have that authority. If there is no ownership of the problem, and some of the people who should be involved in implementation do not think that it's their responsibility, in that case to address that, you can show how the problem is relevant to them. Or if there is no direct connection, how poor outcomes for the whole organization could harm them. If that does not produce by in, you can put in place formal responsibilities for the problem or clarify them if they already exist. It's like the different issue could be that employees and principle agree that they should be responsible, but they have other priorities. In that case, think about how to reconcile the new initiative with overall organizational agenda. Or perhaps after your analysis you conclude that other issues in the organization should indeed take priority. When there is no agreement on the initiative you propose or on the implementation plan, this actually isn't a very bad situation, because you have the recognition that there is a problem and it should be addressed. But in that case, engage employees who bring up these concerns and ask them to contribute to developing a better initiative. When people are engaged in developing a solution, they would also typically be more active in implementing it. Because they feel ownership of that solution. If you firmly believe that your approach is right, you may work around these concerns by starting implementation with pilot efforts that should produce positive results fast. This may convince that your implementation plan is working, and you'll need to iterate, refine, and scale. And scaling is important. Make sure that these first steps are then followed up with wider even if there are problems when scaling up and there would be. Otherwise, employees might become the solution too. There are concerns about undesirable side effects or about obstacles to implementation. Again, engage those who voice these concerns into working out how they can be addressed. There's a chance that working through the plan will actually convince them that the proposed solution cannot be materially improved. However, if you make substantial changes to the initiative, make sure to communicate these changes to everyone who will be engaged in implementation. Because these changes might cause concern somewhere else. If you're facing a lack of follow-through after reaching an agreement, when everything is agreed upon, but implementation isn't proceeding. This might be because employees responsible for implementation were distracted by more urgent priorities. In this case, reorient them to the initiative, for example, by holding frequent meetings to evaluate progress. Implementation might get stuck because employees do not have adequate skills or influence. And, in that case, you may want to rethink who's responsible for implementation and reorganize that team. If those responsible are just dragging their feet, if they have the right skills and no other priorities, it might create more detailed metrics for evaluating implementation progress and engage those who have authority to oversee progress on these metrics. In this course, we highlight the importance of communication in successfully implementing a strategy. During the whole implementation effort, and particularly when you encounter resistance, it's important to maintain the focus of employees who are involved in the attention of influencers in the organization to your implementation effort. This is done through communication and it's a good way to ensure continuing engagement.
