So how can you engage with your system? Before we look at the strategies and tactics for how to engage with them, I want to set out some principles. And I'm going to express these rules because I think they should pretty much guide everything you do as a change manager. And the first rule is the one I call my golden rule. I will always respect my resistance. Because the resistance that I encounter may be unpleasant it may be uncomfortable, and it may be expressed in a highly disrespectful manner.

Your behavior might be appalling. But that's almost certainly driven by someone whose resistance is tilt hinged with a high level of emotionality, they may not have sufficient control over their behavior. don't respect bad behavior, and I don't respect and disrespectful approach to me, but I do respect the person behind it. And I will always take the resistance seriously as a result. If I don't, then I'm setting myself up for all sorts of problems. Your high integrity approach is to respect the person, even if you don't necessarily respect how they address you and your team.

To supplement the golden ruler, five more silver rules if you'd like five more pieces of advice that are good ways to behave and good beliefs to have, if you want to handle resistance in a respectful and effective manner, and the first of these roles is to get it out in the open, invite people to share their resistance. I know you don't like resistance and you don't want it, but it's gonna be there. So invite people to put it into the light of day so that you can examine it, understand it and respond to Do it. And the more resistance they express, the more you can deal with. And if you get to the point where there is no more resistance, you dealt with it, then you've succeeded. If all you do is brush it under the carpet, it'll still be there and it will no way your project.

And the second rule is to assume positive intent behind what may be quite assertive, unpleasant resistance. This is linked to the golden rule, but it's about finding what it is that someone really wants that is positive, that is driving their resistance. Because that will be the key to unlocking the resistance showing how they can have some of that or owning up to the fact that they can't but what they need or their genuine grievance can't be addressed. That will then transform resistance into a productive Okay, what are our choices, type of conversation. The next row To find out what the resistance really is, and by this, I mean, stop making assumptions that the resistance that you're expressing is the resistance that I would feel if I were in your shoes. Because you're not, you're not them.

You don't know what the resistance really is. Words have different interpretations. So make time to listen carefully and ask them to express their resistance in different ways until you can play it back to them. And they say, yes, that's exactly my concern. The alternative is that you address the resistance you think you're hearing and you frustrate them even more a new turn. If you'd like a rational resistance into an irrational response, when they get angry or frustrated by your inability to deal properly with them.

To do that, you'll need to abate the fourth rule, which is to build rapport with your resistors which is sometimes difficult because their behavior makes it uncomfortable to be with them. But the more you You can get to know them, the more you can endorse their legitimate concerns, endorsed the reasons why they feel those concerns, then the better you will be able to understand what their resistance is, but far more valuable. Once you've understood it, if you've got good rapport, they're far more likely to listen to you as you respond to their resistance and to engage with you as a change agent. And the final rule is about humility. seek their insights. Just because they're resistant, it doesn't mean they don't know something of value, and observe something useful.

Every resistor has some knowledge, some insights to share with you. And if you listen, and you take on board those insights, you may be able to improve the change that you're implementing, or the way that you're going about making that change happen. So six rules a golden rule and five others to follow. If you bear those in mind when you're having the resistance, you will be far