MMHA 6111 Week 5 Resistance as Information Post Example

Week 5 Discussion: Initial Post and Replies

The Satellite Team's Objections Are Information About Its Culture, Not Friction to Push Through

Westside Imaging Center, the composite satellite site our imaging department is about to absorb, has a culture that is easy to see if you spend a morning there. Nine technologists and two front desk staff know their regular patients by name. Appointments are booked by phone, often by the same person the patient will see at check-in. Problems, a late patient, a missing order, a worried parent, are settled at the front desk within minutes, usually by whoever is closest.

Since the consolidation was announced, I have heard three objections, and each says something about that culture. First, older patients will struggle with the hospital's parking structure and long walk to imaging. That objection reflects a team that thinks about its patients' whole visit, not just the exam. Second, the hospital's central scheduling will lose the notes Westside keeps about which patients need extra time or a familiar technologist. That reflects knowledge that lives in people rather than in the system. Third, Westside staff will be "the new people" in a department with its own way of doing things. That reflects a team that values its autonomy and fears losing it.

Ford and colleagues made the case that resistance can be a resource: objections often reveal what change agents have missed, and dismissing them throws that knowledge away (Ford et al., 2008). Each of these objections points to something the consolidation plan should protect or replace: help for older patients from parking to imaging, a way to carry Westside's patient notes into central scheduling and a deliberate effort to integrate the two teams rather than absorb one into the other.

The harder question is how many objections have not been voiced. Edmondson showed that team members speak up about problems when they feel psychologically safe, confident that raising a concern will not cost them standing with the team (Edmondson, 1999). At the huddle where the consolidation was discussed, only the lead technologist spoke; the others listened. That silence is itself information, and research on employee reactions to change finds that how much people trust management and feel involved shapes whether they engage with a change or withdraw from it (Oreg et al., 2011). The manager should create settings where objections are easier to raise, such as small group conversations without the manager present, with a lead technologist bringing the themes back, and should respond visibly to the first objections raised so that others see it is safe to add theirs.

Reply to Gabriela

Gabriela, you describe the night nurses resisting your unit's new handoff tool as reluctance to change. What might they be protecting? If the current handoff lets them ask questions the tool does not include, their resistance may be pointing at a gap in the tool. Have you asked any of them what the old handoff gives them that the new one does not?

Reply to Tom

Tom, you say your team has raised no objections to the scheduling change. Given Edmondson's work, I would be cautious about reading silence as agreement. How did you ask, and who was in the room? A quieter channel, such as anonymous questions before a meeting, might show you whether the silence means support or something else.

References

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362-377. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.31193235

Oreg, S., Vakola, M., & Armenakis, A. (2011). Change recipients' reactions to organizational change: A 60-year review of quantitative studies. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(4), 461-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886310396550