Build Trust Before Solving Problems
Most resistance to change in a business is not really about the change itself. It is about trust, and building trust before solving problems is usually what actually clears the way for a solution to stick. A team that pushes back on something new is rarely objecting to the plan on its own merits. More often, they are responding to what the plan represents, and whether they trust the person putting it forward.
Why Resistance Is Usually About Trust, Not the Problem
When a change in a business is met with pushback, it is tempting to assume the plan itself is wrong. Often the real issue sits underneath the plan entirely. Where trust is low, fear tends to fill the gap, and fear breeds a lack of transparency. A team resisting a new budgeting process, for example, is rarely objecting to spreadsheets. They are usually responding to what the word budget has come to represent for them, whether that is scrutiny, blame, or a loss of autonomy.
Listen First, Solve Second
Business author Stephen Covey built an entire habit around this idea: seek first to understand, then to be understood. In practice, that means listening far more than talking in any conversation about change, and treating listening as the foundation of trust rather than a formality on the way to giving an answer. Genuine listening, paired with a willingness to show some vulnerability yourself, creates the kind of safe space where a team actually feels understood rather than managed.
Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Covey’s advice here is blunt: diagnose before you prescribe. Jumping straight to a solution before genuinely understanding the problem underneath it tends to produce a fix for the wrong thing. Asking real questions and listening deeply, before offering an answer, takes longer in the moment but tends to be far more effective than a quick answer that misses what was actually going on.
Build Trust Before Solving Problems, One Conversation at a Time
Covey also describes something he calls the emotional bank account: the idea that trust builds up through small, consistent deposits, being listened to, being treated fairly, being told the truth, and depletes through the opposite. When that account is genuinely full, difficult conversations, including ones about money, become far easier to have, because the relationship can absorb them without fear taking over. Build trust before solving problems, and even the hardest conversations in a business become possible.
If you are working through resistance to a change in your business, whether that is around budgeting, reporting, or anything else your team may be wary of, we would be glad to help you think through how to approach it. Get in touch with the team at MBP.