132 ◾ Organizational Assessment and Improvement in the Public Sector
Overcoming Resistance to Change
A critical function of assessment is to support and enable such change, not
only by providing the information that leads to identifying the improvements
to be made, but also by using the process to build an understanding across
the agency, among participants and nonparticipants, that change is needed.
One of the most fundamental ways to approach and overcome resistance to
change is by presenting people with sufficient credible information about
the organization to enable them to see why the change is being enacted and
why it is beneficial. The process of successful organizational change requires
that people:
◾ believe that there are thin