Managing Team Resistance to New Project Management Software

Effective systems are critical for high performance. But implementing a new system can be tricky. 🔴 The Common Implementation Trap: ↳ You introduce an amazing new system ↳ A few enthusiastic teams dive in ↳ Others drag their feet ↳ Momentum dies ↳ The system becomes inefficient Sound familiar? Most managers believe a compelling presentation is enough to drive implementation. But here's the truth: understanding benefits rarely correlates with implementation success. When systems stall, the natural response is to push harder. But what if the secret isn't pushing harder, but pushing less? 🔵 The Recognition Walk-Around Strategy: We were implementing a SandBag system to remove performance barriers. One department with 23 people across 3 teams was struggling with adoption. My suggestion: use recognition walk-arounds. Here's what happened: The director took his entire team on weekly recognition walks, visiting each office. I joined their second walk-around. The energy was fascinating: Team 1: "Here's our progress implementing the system. ➨ Here are the SandBags we eliminated this week." Director: Provided enthusiastic recognition Team 2: "We were too busy to implement the system. ➨ No SandBags removed." Director: Moved on without providing recognition Team 3: "We just started this week. ➨ Removed 2 SandBags so far." Director: Recognized their initiative to start The energy it created was visible: ↳ Teams with recognition were beaming ↳ Teams without recognition felt the void The message was crystal clear: Implement = Get recognition Excuses = No recognition One Month Later: ✔️ 100% team implementation ✔️ Full engagement across all teams ✔️ System running effectively 👉 The power of this strategy lies not in what was said, but in what wasn't. The selective recognition created a natural pull toward implementation. Why This Works: ↳ Recognition generates positive energy ↳ Non-recognition creates a motivational void ↳ The energy differential creates a force that easily overcomes resistance and spreads engagement 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝑺𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔 Where can you use recognition walk-arounds? _____________   🔔 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 Jacques Fischer for strategies to  ↳ Manage change  ↳ Evolve your culture  ↳ Strengthen leadership  ↳ Develop high-performance organizations #humanresources #hr #changemanagement

"We can't automate these deployments. Do you know how many things could go wrong? We've always done it this way for a reason. If this system goes down, we lose millions." The hardest part of creating change isn't learning new behaviors — it's unlearning the old ones. A while back, a team I was advising maintained a mission-critical system that had been running for over a decade. The deployment process was extraordinarily cautious: manual testing by multiple teams, a lengthy approval chain, mandatory bake time in pre-production, and releases that only happened at 2 AM on Sundays. Everyone hated those deployments. The process was exhausting, killed morale, and despite the caution, they still had occasional issues. When we proposed moving to automated testing and continuous deployment, the resistance was immediate. Not because people didn't want improvement, but because the existing process, despite its flaws, felt safe. Team members who had nursed this system for years couldn't imagine trusting automation with something so critical. This is the challenge of organizational unlearning: it's not just about new processes, it's about addressing our deeply human resistance to abandoning the familiar, especially with high-stakes systems where failure isn't an option. Why is unlearning so difficult? ↳ Success reinforces current patterns ("This system has been stable for years") ↳ Organizational practices become intertwined with personal identity ("I'm the person who keeps this running") ↳ Deep knowledge can counterintuitively become a barrier to adaptation ↳ Under pressure, people instinctively default to what feels comfortable and known When we finally made the shift, we took a gradual approach: 🤖 Automated existing tests first before adding new ones, building trust in the tooling ⚖️ Ran old and new processes in parallel, demonstrating that the automated approach caught everything the manual process did 🪜 Started with lower-risk components before working up to the core system 🎯 Celebrated the first incident caught by automation that manual testing missed Six months later, deployments happened during business hours, system stability had improved, and the team had their nights and weekends back. When I asked one engineer who had been initially resistant how he felt, he said: "I can't believe we did it the old way for so long. But I also couldn't have imagined doing it any other way back then." Unlearning is fundamentally uncomfortable. As leaders, our job isn't to eliminate that discomfort, but to help our teams accept it as a necessary part of growth and to create environments where temporary discomfort doesn't feel like existential threat. #engineering #learning #changemanagement #leadership -------- 👋 Hi, I'm Nathan Broslawsky. Follow me here and subscribe to my newsletter above for more insights on leadership, product, and technology. ♻️ If you found this useful and think others might as well, please repost for reach!

Ever notice how, when you roll out a new system or change at work, and people hesitate, your first instinct is to add more steps or detail? It feels natural: “If we just clarify the process further, they’ll see the logic and get on board.” But often, piling on extra layers of process only makes things more complicated for most. What’s really happening is this: the moment you sense pushback, you try to patch over the resistance with more instructions, more documentation, or more checkpoints. Each addition seems perfectly rational... yet the team still drags its feet. That’s because real adoption issues usually aren’t about logic. They’re about the human side of change: a desire for autonomy, security, clarity on deeper goals, or a need to feel heard in whatever direction you're going. When you’re introducing a better way of working (whether it’s a new planning framework or a fresh meeting structure), try addressing the 𝘸𝘩𝘺 behind people’s resistance before you reach for the “add more steps” button. → Is someone worried that this new process will diminish their sense of ownership? → Are they feeling overwhelmed by too many changes at once? → Do they see how it ties back to outcomes they care about, like having a clearer career path or more time to do the work that excites them? If you dig into those questions, you’ll find that people don’t need endless layers of process once they know you’re solving for their real frustrations and aspirations. Yes, the logic still matters. But it’s only compelling after you’ve spoken to the underlying human motivations. Instead of meeting resistance with more bullet points, meet it with empathy and clarity about what’s in it for them. That’s how a good plan becomes one people genuinely want to adopt.

How do you take a resistant team and guide them through a successful transformation? I led a team that went from evaluating programs to developing them—a complete transformation. At first, there was a lot of pushback, but by understanding their concerns and using a thoughtful approach, we made the transition work.   ---Here’s what I learned--- 🔸Resistance isn’t about the change—it’s about fear of loss. Through candid one-on-one conversations, I discovered the team feared losing their expertise. 🔸Facts don’t inspire change. Stories do. Rather than overwhelm them with reasons for the shift, I shared stories. Emotional buy-in through storytelling sparked curiosity. 🔸Small behavioral nudges lead to lasting change. We didn’t push the team into full-scale program development right away. Instead, we used small steps that eased them into the transition. This made the change feel natural, not overwhelming. 🔸Your biggest resister can become your strongest advocate. I focused on the team’s informal leader—the person everyone trusted. Once he embraced the change, the rest followed. 🔸Embrace failure as a stepping stone to success. We reframed setbacks as learning opportunities. By openly discussing challenges and solutions, we created a culture where innovation thrived and fear of failure diminished. 🏡 Think of change like remodeling a house. Exciting, but full of unexpected snags. In business, it’s the same—something always comes up. Plan for it. Expect it. 💡 Key Lesson: Resistance isn’t a roadblock—it’s part of the process. Expect pushback and guide your team with strategic nudges. What unexpected challenges have you faced when leading change?