Next Level Up
Project Resistance? Provide Justice

By Jack S. Duggal, MBA, PMP

Whether your project is about implementing a system, handing-over a completed building site or rolling-out a project management office process, you are bound to encounter resistance to change and acceptance.

“Even after ten years some people have not fully accepted the transition, they are still resisting it, they are forced to use it, but they don’t accept it,” admits Delores Facey Johnson about one of the major projects that she has been involved with.

Projects, by definition, cause change. Project managers manage change and plan for it. Ironically, the scope is narrow, primarily focusing on configuration and procedural aspects. An important element of change management that is often overlooked is behavioral. The people-side of change does not get adequate emphasis because it is much harder to deal with.

Let’s say you are implementing a system or completing a new facility. The end-users are going to resist it because they have a lot invested in the current way of doing things. They may feel that it is not fair and justified how the project is going to affect them. The people in the new facility might complain because they didn’t know what to expect. They were not involved from the beginning and believe some aspects of the project are not justified and don’t agree with certain facets of the project.

How do you better plan and prepare for changes caused by your project?

There is another idea called “project justice.” This is based on the idea of fair process and procedural justice from the work of two social scientists, John W. Thibaut and Laurence Walker, who combined their interest in the psychology of justice with the study of fair process. They were trying to understand what makes people trust and comply with new laws without resistance or coercion. Their research established that people care as much about the fairness and justification of the process as they do about the outcome.

This idea was further researched and developed as a management concept by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. They discovered that people will commit to a manager’s decision and change—even though they might disagree with it—if they believe that the process the manager used to make the decision was fair and justified.

Fair process is based on three mutually reinforcing principles: engagement, explanation, and expectation clarity. For project justice, you might consider an additional element, empathy.

Engagement means engaging stakeholders throughout the project life cycle and proactively seeking their input particularly in aspects of the project that will affect them most. Engagement provides a sense of confidence that their opinions have been considered.

Explanation details the decisions and makes sure the stakeholders understand the key points. You cannot assume that decisions are self-explanatory or straightforward. More importantly, explanation should also provide the background of why project decisions were made. This provides people with the context as they try to assimilate and adapt the changes from the project.

Expectation clarity describes the “new rules of the game.” It requires clarification of the expectations and consequences brought about by the project.

Empathy involves putting yourself in the shoes of your stakeholders to understand and feeling the pain that the change is going to bring about. This helps you better plan to make the change process fair and just and connect with them from their perspective.

Ms. Johnson remembers that “There was no explanation of why? and what was the benefit, the impact? Only two representatives were sent for training from each department, but they were not able to involve or disseminate important information to the rest of the group. ” The four E’s of project justice—engagement, explanation, expectation clarity and empathy—applied throughout the project life cycle can ensure that these questions are addressed adequately and help to reduce resistance.

Mr. Duggal is the managing principal of Projectize Group LLC, specializing in next generation training, consulting and tools, and a PMI SeminarsWorld^® leader of the seminar Building a Next Generation PMO and Portfolio Management. For questions on the content of the seminar, or your comments and feedback, please contact Mr. Duggal.