Do you have ever joined a new team and want to communicate effectively with your colleagues? What do you think about your teammates? Do you feel any resistance regarding your ideas or opinions?Sometimes you may encounter miscommunication and resistance for change in several cases in your workplace. When you ask for a change or even stating your opinion, you may see this disagreement paradigm showing up. You may get angry and your reaction may cause opposite effects.
Someday I was helping some teammate in doing a project task. The task was to enhance the functionality of some module I have already made before in the project. During this task implementation, he start to ask for something. I give him solution. He didn't like it. This situation happen several times. He seems to me as if he is refusing whatever I suggest. Actually, I got nervous from his attitude. The concern was that he put himself in a defending area as if I am attacking him!
I also had similar situation in my old company. I tried to convince someone inside the team that the team was doing something in a wrong way during the last period. The resistance show up again, the resistance to change. He looks like he's saying: "You have just joined recently. You should follow what we used to do."
From a while, one of my friends joined a new company and he had the same issue with his team. He asked for a change in some development techniques applied in the company and he face this kind of resistance. "I don't want to continue. I feel not good and I can't communicate with them anymore.", my friend said.
I tried to search about this resistance issue. I found a book summary called: Overcoming Resistance. The book is talking about the reasons behind this resistance paradigms you may find in your workplace and how to deal with it.
One of the book advices is to "BEND and SNAP-BACK!". BEND! by ACKNOWLEDGING your subordinate's or team member's response to your request for a change. THEN, SNAP BACK! by restating your request. It is that SIMPLE! BEND and SNAP BACK!. The book author see that these two simple steps are so dramatically effective, it let the resistance blow up leaving your "change consistency" - as he called it - in place and unaltered.
Another note concluded from the book, is to try to be specific about the reason behind the resistance. The resistance can be because different reasons and it's not always the fear of change. It can take several shapes: Procrastination, No follow-through, Insensitivity, Chauvinism, Unprofessional behavior, Low productivity, Lack of initiative or Resistance to change. Avoiding generalities and being specific will block resisters from using some of their favorite escape routes!
I still believe we have a lot to do to enhance the team mentality here in Egypt. There is a lot more than the technicality to care about. The mentality of team work, coordination, respect, ethics and values should be considered and learned.
