Polarities are interdependent opposites that need each other for sustainable success over time. Examples of polarities include:
- directive vs. participative culture,
- centralized vs. decentralized operations,
- quality focus vs. cost focus,
- company good vs. employee good
One polarity to manage is tapping the strengths of both cultures while avoiding the negative aspects of either. A second is paying attention to what’s good for the merged company versus what is good for employees caught in the transition. HR should play a critical role in managing polarities such as these to best support and impact corporate decisions.
How to Manage Employee Resistance
When in your efforts to implement strategies and plans you experience resistance, the most popular assumption is that you have a communication problem and the need is for greater clarity regarding the vision or change management strategy. Perhaps you have not defined the problem in dramatic enough terms, built a hot enough fire for the platform. Maybe you assume that you have not been clear enough about the vision, or that that the strategy doesn’t go into enough detail.However when dealing with polarities, the clearer the communication, the greater the resistance generated. Some people, seen as resisters, are unwilling to sacrifice the benefits of current ways of doing business and only too clearly see the downside of the proposed strategy.
It’s not that people don’t understand your interests – it’s that every time you try explaining them again, you confirm that you don’t understand theirs. And paradoxically, what you thought was your best solution becomes your greatest problem.
Employee Resistance case Study
Here’s an example: A global oil company was committed to redesigning its entire assessment process to better assess and reward managers for promoting a culture that supported diversity. Two key new measures in the assessment were that:- the manager demonstrate flexibility in working with people different from him/herself, and
- the manager show respect toward those people.
At face value, these appear to be solid diversity-related criteria. However, the solution was met with resistance from some managers who were willing to be politically incorrect. They wanted to make sure that they could still be directive and clear when warranted, and were afraid that everything would become participative and flexible in deference to diversity.
They were concerned that too much flexibility was going to lead to inconsistencies and unclear direction in the company. Finally they worried that it would be unacceptable to address poor performance as this would be interpreted as lack of respect for diversity.
The polarities at play in this situation are:
- direction and participation,
- clear and flexible, and
- conditional and unconditional respect.
- Over-focusing on participation, especially to the neglect of direction, results in slow decision-making and unclear roles.
- Over-focusing on direction, especially to the neglect of participation, leads to limited options and low levels of ownership for decisions made.
Highlighting quality targets "at any cost" can price you right out of your market. What Polarity Management provides is tools for recognizing, understanding and managing these complexities all the way from company strategy level right through to dealing with daily line issues.
Next, read about real-time strategic change management principles.
