Trainee Resistance - an Alternative Approach
A brief overview of an alternative strategy for dealing positively with trainee resistance, developed by Professor Raanan Lipshitz of Haifa University.
Most approaches for dealing with trainee resistance encourage trainers to bring it to expose the resistance and overtly work through it. Professor Raanan Lipshitz of Haifa University has published extensively on ways to approach resistance without ever having to acknowledge it, ensuring trainers can keep the focus on learning.
Many of the mainstream strategies for overcoming resistance, including small-group work, experiential exercises, and team goal setting, are based on Kurt Lewin’s concept of “unfreezing.” Unfreezing techniques prioritise bringing trainee resistance to thesurface and using this knowledge to come to a positive and mutual understanding.
Lipshitz believes those approaches are questionable for two reasons. He claims that “they are not practical for short-term, substantive training programmes in which goals and content are determined in advance. Dealing with the resistance can dominate the training program or even become its hidden agenda.” In short he questions “the basic assumption that surfacing and working through resistance
are prerequisites for learning.”
He believes that resistance is a positive, healthy reaction that enables trainees to deal with challenging situations. He explains that “rather than launching a frontal attack on a person’s defenses, he attempts to ‘infiltrate behind the lines’, to interject new ideas, and to facilitate change.”
His ‘nonconfrontive strategies’ fall into three main categories: preventing resitance, circumventing
resistance, and utilising resistance.
Lipshitz outlines how his “prevention strategies deal with known or potential sources of resistance
before the actual training begins. They are particularly useful when the sources of resistance are predictable and well understood. We have developed five techniques for preventing resistance: distracting, assuming a ‘one-down’ position, baiting, preempting, and linking. Although the strategies can be implemented at any time during training, they are particularly effective during the first training session or a preparatory meeting.”
Lipshitz explains that whereas “prevention strategies can help trainers avoid the more predictable manifestations of resistance, they cannot eliminate it. A trainer who directly confronts the resistance risks escalating it and shifting the focus away from substantive issues.” He suggests that, instead of confronting resistant trainees, trainers should circumvent resistance. “Circumventing does not imply ignoring resistance that arises during a training program. Rather, it attempts to keep the workshop on target by not focusing on resistance.”
In his third strategy, Lipshiltz explains utilizing resistance as meaning “treating resistance as substantive agreement. On the basis of behavioral cues, such as tone of voice, body language, or persistence, we often interpret a participant’s strong disagreement as resistance (defensiveness, bids for control, etc.). Rather than interpreting that behavior as resistance and trying to work it through, we acknowledge the participant’s argument, magnify the substantive elements in it, and build on it further in any way possible.”
