Reality Check

Why Might People Not Cooperate with Your Project?

People may be uncooperative or resistant for variety of reasons. Some of these reasons might seem understandable to you, while others may strike you as unsupportable or even petty. We recommend that you refrain from making value judgments about the reasons. Instead, you should to try to discern the possible underlying causes for the resistance and deal with it as best you can. Use Tool 16-2 for identifying causes of uncooperative behavior.

Example of Resistance and Its Underlying Reason

Resistance Behavior

During root-cause analysis, a process owner disputes the validity of the data, claiming that you collected the wrong information because you don’t know what you’re doing (attacking) or that it was an unusual month so the data is meaningless (avoiding).

A Possible Reason for the Behavior

The root cause is something the process owner now realizes he should have addressed long ago, and he fears that acknowledging it now might make him appear incompetent. Since he cannot admit this, he instead attacks you or looks for ways to avoid the issue.

A Warning

If you really don’t know what you’re doing or the data really is from a nonrepresentative month, then this may be common sense rather than resistance!

What to Do When Stakeholders Resist Your Project ... and What Not to Do

Tool 16-3 provides guidance on how to effectively deal with resistance behavior ... and what not to do.