The Resistance to New Software Implementation

Introducing new software to a team’s workflow will, unfortunately, always be faced with some resistance. The more significant the change it brings, the stronger pushback team leaders, project managers, and other people in managerial positions will have to handle.

It turns out that’s a natural response, hardcoded into human behavior. So, even though you spent all that time researching and testing for a new solution to optimize your teammates’ work and save them time and effort, don’t be surprised that most of them won’t appreciate it right ahead.

On the bright side, even though that’s a frustrating response to your good intentions, it won’t last forever. We’ll help you prepare and share some practical tips and advice to get everyone on the same page.

Let us walk you through the emotional time that lies ahead of you.

The Kübler Ross model… or how change can feel like murder

Surprisingly, adopting a new software or technology feels a lot like something terrible is happening in your personal life. Psychologists have found that the famous Kübler Ross model outlining the five stages of grief can be directly applied to such innovations in the workplace.

So brace yourself because you’ll have to deal with Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression before you get to Acceptance. Here’s how it’s going to go:

Image by Whatfix

• In the Denial stage, the innate defense mechanisms of your teammates will come up in an attempt to prevent the introduced change from happening — it doesn’t matter if it’s a new software or practice; they’ll want to stick to what they know, and their productivity will take a severe hit.
• Then comes the Anger. There is a significant chance that the introduced innovation will fail at this stage if not appropriately handled. If your approach is too aggressive, it could lead to your team’s burnout, diminished morale, and attrition. On the other hand, if you fail to motivate your colleagues to move forward with the adoption, they could quickly go back to their old processes.
• The next step is to not give in in the Bargaining stage. Your team will try to find the path of least resistance and substitute the new technology or software with a compromise alternative. It might seem easier to accept that path, but it won’t bring the results you aimed to achieve with the introduced change.
• The Depression stage that will follow might appear the hardest, as your team will be severely unmotivated and will struggle to perform under the new conditions.
• And finally, when all that is over, and they see they can handle the new task at hand, they’ll accept it and move forward.

Keep in mind that these stages often don’t follow exactly as outlined. Your colleagues might go back and forth, and it could take a long time to get to the Acceptance part.

Also, not everyone on the team will get through them at the same pace; some people are more inclined to accept change and can skip some of the stages, while others have a strong need to stick to the comfort of the past. The latter could be especially true for the people who have developed narrow expertise that could be undermined by the new software you want to introduce to the workflow.

The Initiative Adoption Curve… or how not to forget people are different

Let’s focus a bit more on how the process of change acceptance won’t go the same for everybody on the team. Geoffrey Moore discusses this in his book Crossing the Chasm, which introduces the Technology Adoption Life Cycle concept.

That is the base for the Product and Initiative Adoption Curves that outline the different types of software or technology users and how quickly (if at all) they accept innovation in the workplace. Here’s the gist of it:

Image by Chris Harden

• The Innovators are the people who introduce the change in an attempt to resolve a problem. That could be to optimize some tedious processes, make onboarding new hires easier, or do anything else that improves the work conditions. With that goal in mind, they’re inclined to adopt not fully developed tech, even if it’s missing some features, so they could be the first to fix an issue.
• The kind of people you should hope to have on your team are called Early Adopters. They aren’t afraid to take risks and won’t resist the new software or technology. In fact, they’ll be the ones to push for the adoption of the product in the workspace.
• Then comes the Early Majority, who will only accept a fully developed product optimized for their workflow.
• The Late Majority are the ones who aren’t interested in a new product but don’t want to fall behind everyone else.
• The so-called Laggards are the final adopters — they don’t care much about it, but it has been made necessary for them to accept it.

If you’re the Innovator, it’ll be on you to make the transition for everyone from the Early Adopters to the Laggards as smooth as possible. It’s essential that you’ve chosen the right thing, or no one but the Early Adopters will go past the Bargaining stage.

Our experience in assisting teams integrate Connecter into their workflow also shows that figuring out who the Early Adopters among your colleagues are can significantly speed up and ease the process.

We always recommend beginning the adoption with a small team of more enthusiastic people interested in learning new skills so they can figure out how to use our software in their particular situation best. Afterward, they can help the rest of the staff get acquainted with the app and showcase how it could be beneficial. We’ve noticed that this approach mitigates resistance and causes less frustration for most new users.

Wrap up

Implementing new software into your team’s workflow is bound to encounter resistance. Understanding and navigating the stages of change acceptance, as outlined by the Kübler Ross model, can help ease this transition.

Additionally, recognizing the diverse attitudes toward change among team members is crucial. Hopefully, we managed to shed some light on the varying acceptance levels among different product user groups.

Understanding the emotional journey and individual differences can mitigate resistance and facilitate a smoother transition. Stay tuned as we’ll go over the tried and tested practices to overcome these difficulties in more detail in the next few weeks.

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Disclaimer: Some of the images in the article are generated by DALL-E.