LDR 535 Week 5 Implementing Change and Responding to Resistance Example

Ambivalence, Not Opposition: Implementing Change and Responding to Resistance at a New Mexico Public Radio Network

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

LDR/535: Leading Change

Week 5 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

High Desert Public Media, its staff and its pilots are composites written for a model paper.

Four papers have taken the invented High Desert network from crisis to a proposed reinvention. Leaders defined the change, diagnosed the organization, assessed servant leadership and planned transformational leadership practices. The change now moves into implementation. The network will pilot community newsrooms at two rural stations, combining paid staff with trained local contributors; create a shared digital desk of four staff serving all stations; and reorganize schedules at the larger stations. Early reactions are mixed. Some rural staff are energized; several veteran reporters worry that local contributors will weaken editorial standards; engineering staff fear that money for digital work will come from transmitter maintenance. In a leadership meeting, one manager referred to the skeptics as the resisters. This paper plans implementation and examines resistance through research.

Recognizing Ambivalence

Piderit (2000) argued that research had treated resistance and support as opposites, missing the ambivalence many employees feel. She proposed viewing attitudes toward change in three dimensions: cognitive, beliefs about the change; emotional, feelings about it; and intentional, plans to act. Employees can hold positive beliefs and negative feelings, or support the goal but oppose the method. Treating ambivalent employees as resisters can push them into opposition.

Leaders' Role in Resistance

Ford et al. (2008) argued that resistance is not simply a reaction located in recipients but is shaped by change agents. In their account, leaders feed resistance when they break promises, damage trust, communicate poorly or fail to justify the change, and again when they read every objection as defiance. Resistance can also be a resource, surfacing problems and strengthening the change when taken seriously.

Recipients' Reactions

Oreg et al. (2011) reviewed 60 years of quantitative research on change recipients' reactions. Reactions, they found, depend on who the recipients are, how the change is handled, what people expect to gain or lose and the climate of trust around them. Participation and trust consistently predicted more positive reactions.

Mapping Reactions at High Desert

Interviews and a pulse survey show three groups. Rural staff are mostly supportive but anxious about workload as they train contributors. Veteran reporters are ambivalent: they believe in serving rural communities but fear for editorial quality and their own credibility. Engineers are concerned about resources; they support digital growth but have seen maintenance budgets cut before.

Reading the Concerns as Information

Each concern contains useful information. Reporters' worry about quality identifies a real risk: untrained contributors could make errors that damage trust. Engineers' worry about budgets identifies a real tradeoff that leaders had not addressed. Rural staff's workload concern reveals that the plan assumed they could add training duties without relief.

The veteran reporters are not trying to stop the change; they are trying to stop it from failing.

Leaders' Contributions

The argument of Ford et al. (2008) applies here: leaders contributed to resistance through the 2015 reorganization's broken promises, recalled in Week 4, and through announcing the pilots before involving reporters in designing standards. Labeling skeptics as resisters risks deepening the divide.

What Happened When Leaders Listened

An early test showed the value of listening. When the news director met with three veteran reporters about their concerns, they proposed a two-step editing process for contributor stories and a public corrections page, ideas that strengthened the plan. One reporter, initially among the most skeptical, volunteered to lead contributor training at the Las Cruces station. Her shift illustrates Piderit's point: ambivalent employees can become strong supporters when their concerns shape the change.

Engineers and the Budget Question

The engineering staff's concern was resolved through a written agreement protecting transmitter maintenance funding at current levels for two years, with any digital equipment funded from separate grants. The agreement addressed the specific fear behind their reaction and cost little, since the funds were already in the budget.

Implementation Sequence: Months 1 to 3

The leadership team will form an editorial standards group of veteran reporters, rural staff and an outside journalism trainer to design training, editing and correction procedures for community contributors. The digital desk will be staffed through internal transfers. The chief engineer and finance director will set a protected transmitter maintenance budget for two years.

Implementation Sequence: Months 4 to 9

Two rural community newsrooms will launch with 12 trained contributors each, every story edited by a staff editor. The digital desk will release two podcasts. A rural staff member at each pilot station will be relieved of some on-air duties to train contributors.

Implementation Sequence: Months 10 to 18

Leaders will evaluate pilots against quality, audience and community measures and decide whether to expand to the third rural station and adjust the model.

Responding to Reactions

The review by Oreg et al. (2011) puts participation at the center, and so does the plan: skeptics design standards, engineers set their budget terms and rural staff shape their roles. Fairness matters: transfers to the digital desk will be voluntary and posted openly. Trust will be rebuilt through the quarterly reports promised in Week 4. Support will include training and workload relief.

Supporting Rural Staff Through the Pilots

Rural staff carry the heaviest new load. Each pilot station will receive a temporary producer from the digital desk for the first three months, and rural staff will meet weekly with the editorial standards group to share problems and solutions. Their workload will be reviewed monthly, and duties will be adjusted if the pulse survey shows strain.

Listening Mechanisms

A monthly pulse survey with open comments, an editorial standards group that meets throughout the pilots and an anonymous suggestion form will capture concerns. Leaders will report each month what they heard and what changed.

Communication During Implementation

Each phase will begin with an all-staff meeting explaining what will happen, why and what has changed in response to feedback, followed by station-level conversations. Rural communities will hear about pilots through on-air announcements and community meetings, and contributors will be recruited openly.

Measuring the Pilots

Each pilot will be judged on four measures: the number and accuracy of local stories, with corrections tracked; listener feedback from community surveys; contributor retention; and staff workload. Results will be shared with all staff at month nine, including any stories that required corrections, so that skeptics can see the evidence for themselves.

Resources

Implementation will cost about $310,000 in the first year, including the journalism trainer, contributor stipends, digital equipment and backfill for rural staff, funded by a foundation grant secured for innovation in local news and by savings from schedule changes.

Conclusion

Research shows that attitudes toward change are often ambivalent, that leaders help create resistance and can turn it into a resource and that participation and trust shape how recipients react. At High Desert, the people labeled resisters are mostly ambivalent professionals raising real concerns. A sequenced implementation that involves them in designing standards, protects resources and supports rural staff turns their concerns into safeguards for the change.

References

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. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(4), 461-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886310396550

Piderit, S. K. (2000). Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 783-794. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.3707722