Passive Resistance – An Agile coach’s nightmare.

People resist changes. There are different types of resistance caused by different reasons. I wouldn’t generalize that the resistance is evil. There could be valid reasons and some of the reasons can be very healthy too.

However, passive resistance, irrespective of its validity or reason, could be extremely difficult to be dealt with; for any leadership, particularly for an Agile Transformation leader. Here are the few important reasons for passive resistance and possible mitigation.

Awareness: I would like to believe, at least initially, that people resist because of the lack of awareness. But, most of the resistance caused by awareness issues would be expressed explicitly. That’s a blessing in disguise. Still the coach should bring details and hence awareness to the environment, if a transformation would not deliver expected values. It is not uncommon that people stepping forward and asking more questions after such a second wave of awareness sessions.

Hence, lack of awareness may trigger immediate, explicit response as resistance which can addressed by discussion and negotiation. When silently resisted, it would be observed from the outcomes of transformation. When the coach finds the transformation endeavors are not effective in result, he/she should try bringing more awareness to the team.

Acceptance without agreement: Since, agile transformation is a culture change, it normally comes with a lots of support from executive Leadership. So, it generally gets accepted by the team but there could be team members who don’t agree on the principles and values of Agile transformation. The risk is, such acceptance would prevent the free flow of opinion and would prevent the feedback from surfacing. It is extremely crucial that the team and leader get seamless feedback; after all, visibility is a core value of Agility.

The mitigation is:  the transformation leader should be capable of influencing team without authority. By being a servant leader, the Coach should ensure that the team is aware of the reason, execution and the results of agile transformation. He also ensure that the ceremonies and tools would ensure that the transformation is a matter of moving from hierarchy to a flat organization, to enable visibility across the organization. Such visibility will encourage people to get clarified by raising their concerns.