When teams dig in their heels, here’s the counterintuitive way to get them moving again.

I see many teams falling into the same trap without realising it: the more leaders use a policy to push for change, the more people push back. And suddenly, there’s so much energy going into the battle over the policy that people lose their focus on the things that matter.   Donella Meadows calls this “policy resistance,” and if you’ve ever wrestled with a return-to-office policy, you’ve probably seen it firsthand. This is why it happens, and the unexpectedly simple way out

What is the policy resistance team trap?

I see this trap a lot at the moment, it comes from companies implementing policies that are resisted by their people. I see this particularly in relation to getting staff to return to the office.  The challenge comes from all the different people involved wanting different things:

• Organisations want people in three or four days a week.
• Employees want the flexibility that comes from working from home
• Team leaders want happy, high-performing teams.
• Customers want someone available to answer their questions, deliver their work or sell them products.

Everyone in the system is working really hard to get what they want and there is a bit of a stuck, unhappy equilibrium.  The problem is that if any one group manages to gain the upper hand for a time, the other groups redouble their efforts.

How is this playing out in the world right now?

We see this at the moment with PWC now monitoring wifi usage to make sure their people are in the office three days a week.  It will lead to staff spending a lot of time working out how to play the system, rather than getting on with their work.  It will lead to managers trying to find flex and ways around to keep staff engaged, instead of getting on with their work. And, once staff find a way around it, PWC will have to think of something even more draconian, and so the behaviours on all sides become more extreme.

How can you escape this trap?

There are basically two options:

1.       Put all your energy into overpowering the other people. This is what PWC seem to be trying to do. This can work in the short term but it leads to a lot of resentment and often drives behaviours that are the opposite of what you want from engaged, high performing employees. It can even lead to people leaving.

2.       The other option might feel scary and counter-intuitive, but it really works.  Let go of the policy that is causing such resistance.  Release all the energy you and the others are putting into this battle to do something different.  If you de-escalate you will find that others will too, as you’ll find that a lot of their actions were being driven by yours.

If you de-escalate, your team will too. Most resistance is fuelled by the fight itself.

What happened when I tried it

I had exactly this scenario in a team I managed after covid.  The organisation mandated 2 days a week in the office and my team were FURIOUS.  So, I said we would try it for three months and see. They continued to be furious.  After three months we had a meeting and everyone agreed that once a week was fine, as it was, actually, nice to see each other. I said I would trust their judgement on when they had to be in apart from that. The result? They were all in two or three days a week with no complaining.

What next?

Have you experienced this trap in action? Tell me your story in the comments.

Are your team stuck in this trap now?  If you’d like help spotting and escaping your team’s traps, get in touch.

Follow along this series to discover more team traps and how to escape them.

And I really recommend Thinking In Systems by Donella Meadows for a fascinating (if quite hard) read on how systems work in ourselves, our teams and the wider world.