Maintain a climate of trust, support, and confidence.
To manage resistance, use the following guidelines:
1. Talk to those who oppose the change. Get to the root of their reasons for opposition.
2. Clarify information, and provide accurate feedback.
3. Be open to revisions but clear about what must remain.
4. Present the negative consequences of resistance (e.g., threats to organizational survival, compromised patient care).
5. Emphasize the positive consequences of the change and how the individual or group will benefit. However, do not spend too much energy on rational analysis of why the change is good and why the arguments against it do not hold up. People’s resistance frequently flows from feelings that are not rational.
64 PART 1 • UNDERSTANDING NURSING MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS
6. Keep resisters involved in face-to-face contact with supporters. Encourage proponents to empathize with opponents, recognize valid objections, and relieve unnecessary fears.
7. Maintain a climate of trust, support, and confidence.
8. Divert attention by creating a different disturbance. Energy can shift to a more important problem inside the system, thereby redirecting resistance. Alternatively, attention can be brought to an external threat to create a bully phenomenon. When members perceive a greater environmental threat (such as competition or restrictive governmental policies), they tend to unify internally.
The Nurse’s Role Initiating Change Contrary to popular opinion, change often is not initiated by top-level management (Yukl, 2009), but rather emerges as new initiatives or problems are identified. Furthermore, Weiner, Amick, and Lee (2008) posit that organizational readiness is the key to initiating change.
Staff nurses often think that they are unable to initiate and create change, but that is not so.
Home health nurses were often frustrated by not having appropriate supplies with them when seeing a patient for the first time. A team of nurses completed a chart audit to iden- tify commonly used supplies and equipment that nurses were using on their home visits. Each nurse was then supplied with a small plastic container to keep in his or her car with these items. Frustration decreased and efficient use of nursing time was improved.