When senior management considers a cultural transformation, they typically dedicate considerable time to defining the purpose of the change, the new expected behaviors, the governance structure, the indicators, the communication messages, and the process milestones. All of this is necessary. However, a crucial aspect is often overlooked: people’s attitudes toward the change. It’s assumed that if the change is rationally sound, strategically necessary, and well-communicated from management, employees will eventually adapt. But this assumption is incomplete. A cultural transformation doesn’t involve working with parts of an organization, but with real people, with their own histories, habits, fears, preferences, frustrations, expectations, and learned ways of doing things.

Management literature has extensively documented that change processes encounter resistance. Kotter, based on his observation of over one hundred companies that attempted transformation, showed that many initiatives fail not necessarily because the strategic diagnosis is wrong, but because the human dimension of the process is underestimated: a lack of urgency, insufficient coalition, poor communication, premature declaration of victories, or failure to embed new behaviors in the culture (Kotter, 1995). McKinsey has echoed a frequently cited idea in management practice: a very high proportion of change programs fail to achieve their objectives, largely due to employee resistance and insufficient managerial support (McKinsey, 2015). Prosci, in his studies of change management best practices, has also found that middle managers often emerge as one of the most resistant groups: in his most recent research, 43% of participants identified them as the group most resistant to change (Prosci, 2023). This finding is particularly important because middle managers not only receive the change; You must also translate it, explain it, support it, and turn it into working practices.

Resistance, however, should not be understood simplistically. Not all resistance is stubbornness, complacency, or a lack of commitment. Piderit (2000) proposed understanding the response to change as a multidimensional attitude: there can be an emotional reaction, a cognitive appraisal, and a behavioral disposition, and these three dimensions do not always coincide. Oreg (2006) complements this idea by showing that resistance to change depends not only on the objective content of the transformation but also on personal dispositions and the context in which the change is introduced.

A person may rationally understand that change is necessary but feel insecure about what they will lose. They may agree with the objective but distrust the implementation method. They may support the transformation in theory but continue acting according to old routines because they are what they are familiar with. This forces senior management to stop interpreting all resistance as opposition and begin to read it as information as well. Often, resistance reveals hidden costs, unaddressed fears, contradictions between departments, communication breakdowns, or real capacity problems.

From an anthropological perspective, the problem runs even deeper. Human beings don’t reinvent their actions every morning. They largely rely on habits, customs, routines, and practical certainties that allow them to act without having to think through every detail. This stability isn’t negative; it’s a condition for effectiveness. The problem arises when an organization needs to modify these routines and expects people to change as quickly as an organizational chart, a procedure, or a technological platform. Changing a habit means removing the person from a way of acting that no longer required special attention and asking them to enter a zone of greater effort, uncertainty, and learning. Therefore, change requires not only technical training; it requires human support.

Behavioral psychology helps us understand this reality. Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1991) showed that there is a status quo bias and a loss aversion: people tend to value what they already have more than what they might gain from change. In organizational life, this means that employees don’t just compare the abstract benefit of the transformation with the current situation. They also compare what they feel they might lose: mastery of their task, recognition, autonomy, security, relationships, status, schedules, comfort, and professional identity. In this comparison, the perceived loss usually outweighs the promised gain.

Something similar happens with habits. Studies on habit formation show that repeated behavior in a stable context tends to become automatic, and that breaking existing habits requires more effort than creating a new behavior in the abstract (Lally, Van Jaarsveld, Potts, & Wardle, 2010; Gardner, Lally, & Wardle, 2012). This is highly relevant to cultural transformation. A company can declare that it wants to be more collaborative, more customer-oriented, or more digital, but employees will continue to act according to organizational habits that have been rewarded for years. If, for a long time, those who solved problems alone, those who didn’t share information, those who avoided reporting bad news, or those who protected their own area over the good of the company were rewarded, it’s not enough to simply say that collaboration will now be valued. Systems, incentives, meetings, decisions, evaluations, symbols, and concrete examples of leadership will have to be modified.

A few weeks ago, I attended a doctoral thesis defense on digital transformation in companies. The doctoral candidate had extensive experience with processes of this nature in digital organizations. At one point in her presentation, she made a simple but very true statement: change is the hardest thing for everyone. The statement might seem obvious: many of us have personal experience with this. We struggle to change schedules, work methods, systems, responsibilities, communication habits, or ways of relating to others. However, we easily forget this truth that we recognize in our personal lives when we make plans for the organizations we lead. On paper, change seems clean, sequential, and reasonable. In reality, change involves people who have to relearn, be open to making mistakes, abandon familiar comfort zones, and trust that management knows where it’s going.

Therefore, the attitude toward change should be explicitly incorporated into the design of any cultural transformation. It cannot be an afterthought, addressed only when resistance has already emerged. It must be part of the initial assessment. Before defining the plan, senior management should ask themselves what habits they want to replace, what losses different groups will perceive, what fears will be triggered, what skills are lacking, what contradictions exist between the desired message and current systems, and which individuals can become positive role models for change. Cultural change doesn’t begin when the internal campaign is launched. It begins when the real situation of the people who will have to change is seriously understood.

A primary recommendation is to involve employees from the outset. Involvement doesn’t mean that everything is open to discussion or that management relinquishes its leadership role. It means recognizing that those who do the work know details that senior management doesn’t always see. Lenberg, Wallgren, and Feldt (2017), in a study with software engineers, found that openness and willingness to change were related to knowledge of the expected outcome, understanding the need for change, and participation. This confirms a very concrete managerial intuition: a person is more receptive to change when they understand why the change is happening, what it aims to achieve, how it affects them, and how they can contribute.

A second recommendation is to announce changes well in advance. It’s not about communicating just once, but about creating reasonable anticipation. If an activity will be done differently in six months, it’s best to announce it now, reiterate it, explain what will change, provide examples, answer questions, train people, and set a clear date. The future date serves a pedagogical purpose: it allows people to begin internally letting go of the previous way of working. Delayed communication has the opposite effect: it turns the change into a sudden imposition and triggers defenses that could have been avoided.

A third recommendation is to clearly distinguish what is negotiable and what is not. In many transformation processes, people are invited to participate, but the limits of that participation are not explained. This generates frustration. It is better to say honestly: this decision has already been made for strategic reasons; what we want to build with you is how to implement it, the risks we must anticipate, the necessary support, and the adjustments that will make the change viable. This clarity shows more respect for people than mere superficial participation.

A fourth recommendation is to work specifically with middle managers. They often experience a particular tension: they receive pressure from senior management and, at the same time, they hear the concerns of their teams. If they don’t understand the change, if they don’t feel heard, or if they believe they will lose power, they can become a silent obstacle. But if they are trained, listened to, and engaged, they can become the primary agents of transformation. In a cultural transformation, middle management is not an administrative channel; it is a fundamental anthropological and political element.

A fifth recommendation is to train before demanding. Many instances of resistance stem not from ill will, but from insecurity. The person fears they won’t be able to perform well in the new system. Therefore, training should include opportunities for practice, mistakes, and corrections without humiliation. If the employee feels that the change will expose them to public failure, they will likely retreat to the previous way of working. If, on the other hand, they perceive a supported learning process, their anxiety will decrease.

A sixth recommendation is to align systems with the desired culture. It’s not enough to ask for collaboration if bonuses only reward individual results. It’s not enough to ask for customer focus if internal departments are measured solely by administrative efficiency. It’s not enough to ask for innovation if reasonable errors are punished disproportionately. It’s not enough to ask for transparency if bad news damages the career of the person who delivers it. Culture doesn’t change primarily through posters or speeches. It changes when expected behaviors become reasonable, achievable, recognized, and supported by management systems.

A seventh recommendation is that senior management embody the change. Cultural transformation loses credibility when leaders demand behaviors they themselves don’t practice. If a culture of collaboration is desired, the management team must collaborate. If a culture of austerity is desired, managers must demonstrate austerity. If a culture of listening is desired, management must truly listen, especially when what they hear is uncomfortable. Culture is transmitted more through the visible behaviors of those in power than through institutional pronouncements.

An eighth recommendation is to get to know your employees personally. This may seem less technical, but it’s crucial. When working with people, it’s not enough to know their job title. It’s important to know where they live, how long it takes them to get to work, what family responsibilities they have, their career aspirations, their fears, their previous experiences with organizational changes, what skills they want to develop, and what specific conditions facilitate or hinder their work. This knowledge isn’t sentimental. It’s relevant management information. It allows you to design more humane changes and, precisely for that reason, more effective ones.

Cultural transformation, therefore, demands a more comprehensive approach. It requires strategy, governance, indicators, and communication. But it also requires anthropology. It needs to understand that human beings seek goods, but do not always perceive them clearly; that they cling to the familiar because they find security there; that habits reduce effort and are therefore not easily abandoned; that fear does not disappear by decree; that trust is built through consistency; and that personal freedom thrives when individuals understand, participate, and feel supported.

The conclusion is simple, yet demanding: when working with people, we must not forget the fundamental characteristics of human nature. Senior management may be right about the need for change, and yet still fail if they don’t understand how people change. Therefore, any cultural transformation should be based on a deeper understanding of human nature and a more concrete understanding of the employees. Changing a culture is not just about modifying organizational practices. It’s about helping specific individuals abandon a learned way of experiencing work and adopt another, which, initially, will be less familiar. Only when this reality is recognized does change cease to be an organizational imposition and become a shared learning process.

References

Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., & Thaler, R.H. (1991). Anomalies: The endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias.  Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5 (1), 193–206.  https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.5.1.193

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail.  Harvard Business Review, 73 (2), 59–67.

Lenberg, P., Wallgren Tengberg, L.G., & Feldt, R. (2017). An initial analysis of software engineers’ attitudes towards organizational change.  Empirical Software Engineering, 22 , 2179–2205.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9482-0

Oreg, S. (2006). Personality, context, and resistance to organizational change.  European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15 (1), 73–101.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320500451247

Piderit, S. K. (2000). Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change.  Academy of Management Review, 25 (4), 783–794.  https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.3707722

Prosci. (2023).  Best practices in change management: 12th edition executive summary . Prosci.  https://empower.prosci.com/best-practices-change-management-executive-summary