What If They’re Right?

ou know the person. You are sitting in a meeting talking about a new initiative. The project team has done the work, the recommendation has been made, leadership is aligned and everyone is ready to move. Then someone raises a hand and asks, “What happens when this gets to the field?” Maybe they point out that the organization tried something similar three years ago, or simply say, “I don’t think this is going to work the way you think it will.”

Suddenly, the energy in the room changes. You can almost hear the collective thought: Here we go. They are being negative. They are resistant. They just don’t like change. Before long, we are thinking about how to get this person on board instead of considering a much more uncomfortable possibility: What if they’re right?

We Have Been Trained to Manage Resistance

For years, we have talked about resistance as something that needs to be understood, managed and ultimately overcome. There is good reason for that. Sometimes people do push back because they are afraid, uncertain, overwhelmed or simply more comfortable with the way things work today.

But sometimes the person pushing back knows something you don’t. They may understand the customer better than the project team does. They may know that a process that looks great on PowerPoint will create three extra steps in the field. They may remember what happened the last time the organization tried something similar, see a dependency the project team missed or know that two systems do not actually work together the way everyone assumes they do.

They may also be the only person willing to say out loud what ten other people in the room are thinking. That is not necessarily noise. It might be information.

Resistance Is a Signal, Not a Diagnosis

One of the biggest mistakes we make when leading change is treating resistance like a diagnosis. Someone pushes back and we immediately decide they are resistant. Once we apply that label, it becomes very easy to stop listening to what they are actually telling us.

I think resistance is better understood as a signal. And signals require investigation. When your check-engine light comes on, you do not put a piece of tape over it because the light is annoying you. You figure out why it is on.

Resistance deserves the same curiosity. What is this person seeing? What are they worried about? What experience are they drawing from? What would need to be true for them to feel differently? Most importantly, is there something here we need to know?

Your Most Difficult Person May Be Your Best Early-Warning System

In The People Stack, I talk about different ways resistance can show up through the Wolf, who challenges; the Owl, who questions; and the Mule, who digs in. It is easy to see those behaviors as obstacles, especially when you are trying to keep a project moving.

But consider them from another perspective. The Owl asking question number 47 may have just found the hole in your implementation plan. The Mule refusing to move may understand an operational reality that has never made its way into the conference room. The Wolf openly challenging leadership may be exposing a trust problem that everyone else is discussing quietly after the meeting.

That does not mean every objection is correct or that every concern should change the plan. Listening also does not mean handing over decision-making authority. It means being curious enough to determine whether the resistance is telling you something useful before you try to make it disappear.

Resistance Can Tell You Where the People Stack Is Breaking

This is where resistance becomes especially useful. Instead of treating it only as a behavior to manage, we can use it as a diagnostic. In The People Stack, I argue that successful change depends on five conditions: Clarity, Alignment, Capability, Belief and Sustainment, with Trust running underneath all of them. Resistance can help us see which of those conditions may be missing.

Someone asking the same questions over and over may not be difficult. They may be telling you that Clarity is missing. A team pushing back because leaders are giving different answers may be exposing an Alignment problem. Someone worried that the new process will not work in practice may be pointing to a Capability gap. A person who understands the plan but still does not believe it will work may be giving you important information about Belief. And the team member who says, “We tried this before and six months later everyone went back to the old way,” may be questioning Sustainment based on very real experience.

Then there is Trust. Trust influences every layer of the Stack. If people do not trust the decision, the process or the people leading it, more communication alone is unlikely to solve the problem. Their resistance may be telling you that the issue is not what they know. It is what they believe based on what they have experienced.

That changes the leadership question. Instead of asking, “How do we get this person on board?” ask, “What is their resistance telling us about the conditions we have not created yet?”

Psychological Safety Gets Tested When We Disagree

We talk a lot about creating psychologically safe workplaces, but psychological safety is easy when everyone agrees. The real test comes when someone says something we do not want to hear.

What happens when someone says,“I think we’re missing something”?If the response is defensiveness, dismissal or a quiet reputation as “the difficult one,” people learn very quickly what kind of feedback is actually welcome. The next time they see a problem, they may decide to stay quiet.

The project does not become less risky because nobody raised an objection. You have simply lost access to the warning signal.

Curiosity Does Not Mean Consensus

Good change leadership does not mean everyone gets a vote on every decision. Sometimes you listen carefully, investigate the concern and move forward anyway. The strategy may still be right. The timeline may still stand. The new process may still need to happen.

But there is a significant difference between saying, “We heard your concern, looked into it and here is why we are moving forward,” and dismissing someone as resistant. One builds trust. The other erodes it. And trust has a funny way of showing up later when you need people to take a leap with you.

Being heard is not the same as getting your way. People can disagree with a decision and still move forward with it when they believe their concerns were genuinely considered. What damages trust is asking people for input when the decision has already been made and there is no intention of listening. If the answer is already decided, be transparent about that. If there is room to influence the outcome, be equally clear about where that room exists.

Before You Manage the Resistance, Investigate It

The next time someone pushes back on a change, pay attention to your first reaction. If you find yourself thinking, Here we go again. They never like anything. We need to get them on board, try getting curious before getting frustrated.

Ask another question. Listen a little longer. Look for the signal underneath the behavior. Sometimes resistance means someone needs more clarity or confidence. Sometimes trust has been damaged. Sometimes people simply need more time to process what is happening.

And sometimes they are right.

The goal is not to eliminate resistance. It is to understand what the resistance is trying to tell you, then decide what to do with that information.

The leaders who are best at navigating change are not the ones who eliminate resistance the fastest. They are the ones who know when resistance needs to be addressed and when it needs to be heard.

So before you create a plan to manage the difficult person in the room, ask yourself one uncomfortable question: What if they’re right?

BGPD Rule

Before you manage the resistance, get curious about the signal. You don’t have to agree with it, but you should understand what it is trying to tell you.

Related Reading

If this idea resonates, it connects closely to two other pieces I have written: Sometimes You Just Have to Tell Resistance to Sit Down, which explores what happens after you have listened, addressed the legitimate concerns and it is time to move forward, and The Questions That Quiet Fear, about the questions people are really trying to answer when uncertainty shows up during change.

Julie Ann Whitten is a change advisor, keynote speaker, and the author of The People Stack: Why Change Fails (and What Actually Fixes It), available now on Amazon. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience leading transformation, communications, and organizational change, she helps leaders understand the human side of adoption and build the trust required to make change stick.