Why People Resist Change (and What Leaders Often Miss)

As the final quarter begins, leadership teams are reviewing this year’s results and shaping their 2027 strategic plans. They may be considering a new service, a different operating model, tighter budgets, or a renewed focus on customer experience. The plan can look compelling in the meeting room. Then it reaches the rest of the organization, and progress slows.

It's tempting to say, “People resist change.” Sometimes they do. But that phrase can hide more useful questions: Do people understand what's changing and why? What will they have to give up or adapt to and why? Have leaders inspired a shared vision of the future, aligned with the chosen business strategy in a way that makes sense to the team? Does the organization’s daily behavior support the values it claims to hold, and do these values support the proposed business strategy?

When we ask those questions, apparent resistance often becomes valuable information about a gap between the plan and the conditions needed to carry it out. 

Leaders often think that their teams are aligned with business strategy. But research shows otherwise. In a Harvard Business Review article, Vikas Mittal, Alessandro Piazza, and Ashwin Malshe describe an analysis of more than 500 employees across 12 organizations. Participants estimated strategic agreement in their organizations at 82%, on average. Yet an analysis of their written descriptions of the strategy found an average of 23% alignment in the concepts and words they used. This measure captures overlap in descriptions; it’s not a direct test of whether employees agreed with every decision. Still, the gap is striking.

In one company, even members of the strategy team interpreted the plan through their own functional areas. In another, employees described priorities that pointed in opposing directions. People could sincerely say they supported “growth” while one group pursued higher-volume work and another pursued more complex, higher-value services.

This is a critical lesson for Q4 planning: agreement in a meeting isn't proof of shared understanding. A polished presentation, an enthusiastic retreat, or a companywide announcement may create the feeling of alignment. Implementation reveals whether people know which choices to make when priorities compete.

What looks like resistance may be something else

Change often asks people to relinquish familiar routines, relationships, expertise, or a sense of control. A manager who built a successful team around one set of goals may wonder what a new plan means for that team’s work and reputation. An employee who has lived through several abandoned initiatives may reasonably ask whether this one will last. A nonprofit staff member committed to a mission may worry that new efficiency targets will reduce the quality of service.

These concerns aren't necessarily objections to the destination. They may be questions about the route, the cost, or whether the organization can keep its promises. Leaders should explore at least five possible sources of friction:

• Different interpretations. “Improve the client experience” can mean faster response times to one team and deeper personal attention to another.
• Competing incentives. A cross-functional goal will struggle if each department is still rewarded only for its own numbers.
• Unacknowledged loss. New priorities can affect roles, autonomy, valued projects, or professional identity.
• Limited capacity. Staff cannot take on a new initiative indefinitely without clarity about what will stop, change, or receive added support.
• Low trust. If leaders invite feedback but punish disagreement, people learn to stay quiet in the meeting and express concerns elsewhere.

None of these explanations means leaders must abandon a difficult decision. They mean leaders need to understand the human and operational realities of carrying it out. A concern surfaced early is easier to address than a silent workaround that becomes standard practice.

The culture is already communicating

Strategy describes where an organization wants to go. Culture shapes what people believe will actually happen along the way. Employees watch which teams share information, which voices are heard, how mistakes are handled, and whether leaders follow the rules they set for others.

The Workday article “Why Core Values Matter—and How to Define Them” makes a practical distinction: purpose explains why the organization exists, vision describes where it's going, and core values guide how people work together to get there. Values gain credibility when they're defined through observable behaviors and reflected in decisions, feedback, recognition, and daily work.

Consider an organization that lists collaboration as a core value while its leaders withhold information or curtail team participation until decisions are final. Teams may then protect their own priorities and duplicate effort. 

Or consider a company that celebrates wellbeing while treating every new objective as additional work on top of existing commitments. Employees are likely to judge the lived behavior, not the statement on the website.

Culture can also help explain why strategic misalignment persists among senior leaders. If candid disagreement is treated as disloyalty or managed and expressed with anger, executives may leave a planning session with unresolved differences. Their teams then receive distinct versions of the same strategy. Communication becomes a series of departmental interpretations instead of a shared commitment.

Five actions to consider before the 2027 plan is finalized

1. Test understanding independently.

Before another presentation, ask senior leaders, middle managers, and frontline colleagues to answer three short questions without consulting the strategy deck: What are our top two or three priorities for 2027? Whom will those priorities benefit, and how? What will we stop or deprioritize to make room? Compare the responses across roles and functions. Look for conflicting interpretations and missing tradeoffs. Treat the results as a diagnosis of the communication and planning process, not as a test of employee loyalty.

2. Listen for the work behind the words.

Hold small conversations with the people who serve customers, clients, patients, students, or communities directly. Ask where current processes help or hinder the outcomes the organization promises. What do they hear repeatedly from the people served? Which tasks consume time without adding value? Where do departments hand work off poorly? The HBR authors emphasize customer value, embedding strategy in frontline work, and dialogue across levels. For a nonprofit, the relevant question may be how the plan creates value for the people and communities it serves while honoring its mission.

3. Name the tradeoffs and the losses.

Explain the case for change in concrete terms, including what evidence shaped the decision, what remains uncertain, and what people will experience differently. Ask, “What are we asking this team to release?” and “What resources or decisions must change for this priority to be feasible?” Give managers room to raise the implications for their teams. Being honest about a discontinued project or a changed role is more respectful than presenting every shift as an uncomplicated opportunity.

4. Translate each value into behavior.

Choose a small number of behaviors that matter for this strategy. If transparency is a value, agree that teams share changes to deadlines and risks early. If collaboration matters, specify when two departments must plan together and who resolves a competing priority. If accountability matters, define how leaders acknowledge missed commitments and repair them. Workday recommends gathering employee perspectives and testing whether stated values reflect actual experience. Ask employees where a value already shows up and where the organization falls short. Then put these behaviors into team meetings, onboarding, performance conversations, and recognition.

5. Establish a learning rhythm.

Assign an owner and a useful measure to each priority, but also review the behaviors that will make progress possible. Are teams receiving the information they need? Are handoffs improving? Do employees feel able to flag a conflict between a target and a core value? Set a monthly cross-functional check-in to review what the measures show, hear examples from the front line, remove obstacles, and revise the approach when needed. Share what changed because people spoke up. That closes the loop and gives future feedback a reason to be offered.

It all starts with leadership behavior

A 2027 plan will ask others to adapt. Leaders must be willing to adapt too. That may mean replacing a favored initiative, inviting a challenge to an assumption, coordinating with a colleague whose goals differ, or admitting that an earlier message was unclear. It also means managing our own defensiveness when feedback is difficult to hear.

Before year-end, bring your leadership team together around two questions: “Where do our actions contradict our strategy or values?” and “What will people see us do differently in the next 30 days?” Choose a visible action, assign responsibility, and report back on what happened.

People are more likely to move through change when they can understand its purpose, influence its implementation, see the support available, and trust that leaders will practice the values they ask everyone else to live. The strongest 2027 plan will be one that people can explain, question, and carry into the work they do every day.