The story
Douglas O’Loughlin, PhD, is Principal of The Dao of Thriving, Associate Consultant at the Civil Service College and Adjunct Faculty at Singapore Management University. He grew up in New York and has lived in Singapore since 1993, helping teams and organizations understand each other and change together.
One program he worked on was meant to make life easier for lower-income families: instead of dealing with many ministries and agencies, each family would have one social worker who could call on all of them. Nine agencies were involved. “We thought this would be a no-brainer.” It was not.
“I don’t think people resist change.”
The skill at work: Active Listening (Skill 4)
Active Listening, in The Adaptive Advantage, means Listening for Loss: hearing what people fear giving up behind what looks like resistance. Douglas’s whole approach starts there.
He noticed the “yes, but”
Every agency liked the idea, but none was fully investing in it. Some said, “we already do this.” Others pointed to the big changes it would mean for their own processes.
He went to each agency to find what was in the way
Instead of pushing harder, the team talked with each agency about its real barriers. For some it was understanding the new process. For others it was how a call from a social worker would be received on their side.
He dropped the phrase “people resist change”
In organization development, Douglas treats hesitation as data. It could come from something in the past, from the change being troublesome, or from not knowing how. He would like to take “people resist change” out of our vocabulary.
He works himself back to curiosity
Curiosity is not always his first reaction. Sometimes he also thinks, why aren’t people getting on board? When that happens, he works his way back to curiosity before he tries to help.
He listens before he designs
On another transformation project, he asked for a week simply to listen: five days with leaders and focus groups before designing anything. “When people are involved, they own it.”
Everyone came on board
It took about six months. The three-year pilot was a success and became part of the way the ministry runs some of its programs.
Try this
Think of a change people around you are slow to take up. Instead of asking “why are they resisting?”, ask one person: “What would this change cost you?” Then listen without defending the change.
Learn more from Douglas
His books, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle: Facilitating Transformation and ANDlightenment. His 12-minute TEDx talk: How to Spot Polarities.
More stories
Finding the sparkle: William Anderson’s story of Active Listening →
Synergize, Don’t Polarize: Douglas O’Loughlin’s story of Conflict Facilitation →
This article is our interpretation of Douglas’s story, based on the conversation on The Adaptive Edge Podcast. The framework names are ours; the events and lessons are his own.