During the first year of my MSW program, I had to choose between two elective courses: Motivational Interviewing and Social Work and Criminal Justice.
Motivational Interviewing (or MI) is a goal-oriented counseling style that encourages people to explore resistance or ambivalence about behavioral change. MI sounded more interesting, but with the guidance of my field placement supervisor, I chose the social work and criminal justice course. Her rationale made sense at the time, and the criminal justice course ended up being useful in my case management role post-graduation. Some of my clients engaged with the criminal justice system, and it helped me view my work through a systems-change lens. Years later, I realize that I should’ve taken the MI course.
My client work revolves around acknowledging resistance, securing buy-in, and listening to the day-to-day of staff who, though they understand that a new concept or strategy is intended to show the impact of their work, are more concerned about how this new concept or strategy will get in the way of their day-to-day work.
But what if organizational leaders could learn to work alongside their staff, acknowledge their resistance or hesitancy to change (and where it’s coming from), prioritize their well-being and perspectives, and encourage them to voice their own reasons for change?
From Individual Change to Organizational Change
Motivational Interviewing was developed around conversations with individuals. Still, the framework offers a useful way to think about how we communicate when people feel uncertain or ambivalent about change. MI emphasizes partnership, acceptance, compassion, and drawing out people’s own motivations rather than trying to convince them to change.
Its four tasks are engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning. Although they provide a useful progression, they aren’t a rigid four-step checklist. Conversations can move back and forth between them as circumstances change.
For organizational leaders, those four tasks offer a different starting point for change.
Engaging: Start With Their Experience
Engaging comes before persuading. In MI, this means establishing a productive relationship by listening carefully, seeking to understand someone’s perspective, affirming strengths, and respecting autonomy.
At the organizational level, that might mean asking staff what a proposed change looks like from where they sit.
One client organization I worked with supported a community college in implementing developmental education reform. Faculty resistance became an important finding from the work, as faculty reporting having concerns about student preparedness, top-down legislative mandates, and insufficient instructional resources.
Calling that response “resistance” without understanding its source would have missed valuable information.
Engaging staff creates room to ask: What worries staff about the change? What have they experienced before? What support do they need? What do they see that leadership may not?
Their concerns may not disappear. But now you’re having a conversation about the realities of change instead of treating reluctance as a problem to overcome.
Focusing: Get Clear About What Needs to Change
Once staff are engaged, focusing establishes a shared direction for the conversation. In MI, both parties bring their expertise to the conversation and work together to identify a shared purpose.
Organizations need this clarity, too. Maybe staff need better data, or better community engagement strategies. These identify priorities, but they don’t necessarily tell staff what will change in practice.
Another client organization updated its strategic plan through a process led by its board of directors. Staff had a practical concern: How would their annual work plans align with potentially new organizational strategies?
That question matters. Leadership may be thinking about the organization’s future direction while employees are thinking about what that direction means for the work they’re responsible for next Tuesday.
Focusing creates an opportunity to connect those perspectives.
Evoking: Let Staff Articulate Their Reasons for Change
This is where MI gets particularly useful. Evoking explores a person’s own ideas, motivations, and reasons for change rather than supplying those reasons for them. Ambivalence may surface, but it isn’t automatically treated as something negative.
Organizations can do the same.
Instead of spending all of your energy explaining why staff should support a change, ask what they think could improve if the organization addressed the issue, what isn’t working now, and what they want to protect as things change.
You may hear reasons for change that leadership hadn’t considered, or that these reasons may be legitimate hestitation for staff.
Planning: Turn Readiness Into Action
Planning moves the conversation toward how change could happen. MI doesn’t assume that everyone is automatically ready to plan. Timing and readiness matter.
The same should be true inside organizations.
Once staff have identified their concerns, clarified the focus, and articulated reasons for change, planning can become more concrete: What needs to happen first, and who needs to be involved? Will staff need more resources, and if so, what existing responsibilities need to shift? And how will we know whether the change is working?
A plan developed this way doesn’t guarantee universal agreement (organizational change rarely works that neatly), but it does, however, give staff an opportunity to see themselves in the process rather than simply experiencing the result of decisions made elsewhere.
Key Takeaway
Motivational Interviewing offers organizations another way to approach those conversations: Engage people, establish a focus, evoke their perspectives and motivations, and plan with readiness in mind.
When staff say a proposed change feels like more work, listen to what they’re telling you. Their concerns may point to a capacity problem or a need for more information. Staff may also see implementation barriers that leadership hasn’t considered or disagree with the direction altogether. In other cases, they may support the goal while wondering how they’re supposed to accomplish it with the time and resources they have.
Before asking staff to embrace change, give them meaningful opportunities to help shape how change happens.
Raise Your Voice: How does your organization engage staff when change feels like more work? Share below in the comments section.
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