1. Reflecting on resistance
   1. At certain points in this unit so far, there have been glimpses of the more human aspects of learning; for instance, in the possibility that learners might push back when faced with some instructional designs, whether this is an active refusal to participate or a more passive disengagement.
   2. We have also seen that learners’ emotions might have a role to play in the effectiveness of training and talent management interventions.
   3. In this final section of the unit, you will explore these human aspects more fully, using the concept of resistance as the main conceptual anchor.
   4. The topic of resistance features increasingly prominently in conversations about organisational life.
   5. You may well have experience of discussing – perhaps even dealing with – resistance in the context of organisational change.
   6. Within the change management literature, employees’ resistance to change is one of the most common explanations offered for why change initiatives seem to fail so often.
   7. Indeed, within this literature, resistance has often been construed as an irrational reaction against necessary efforts to re-engineer an organisation to be more effective.
   8. Explanations for employee resistance tend to revolve around parochial self-interest (i.e. putting one’s own interests ahead of the interests of the organisation) or misunderstandings about the nature of the change or the reasons for it.
   9. Seen this way, resistance is something that leaders and professionals, including HRD professionals, need to find a way to overcome, typically by implementing programmes of communication and employee engagement.
   10. Problem or opportunity?
   11. Recently the focus has shifted towards seeing the potentially productive or useful aspects of employee resistance.
   12. Scholars argue that resistance can produce valuable insights about a proposed change programme, raising issues that the designers of the programme might not be aware of, and surfacing some of the taken-for-granted assumptions on which the programme is based.
   13. For instance, Courpasson and colleagues (2012) suggest that resistance can transform an organisational change initiative into something that reflects the actual needs of the business ‘on the ground’, and is therefore more likely to enjoy some lasting success.
   14. In this way, resistance becomes a vital source of feedback to the designers and commissioners of a change programme.
   15. Courpasson and colleagues (2012) argue that the ability to provide constructive feedback on a proposed change, marshal arguments for an alternative approach, and build stakeholder coalitions in support of that alternative is actually a crucial competency for organisational members to develop.
   16. In this view, resistance is not a matter of an employee just being awkward or difficult. Instead, resistance can reveal an employee’s organisational commitment and desire to see their organisation develop and change successfully.