Compliant Resisters

Compliant resisters are very hard to spot in your business. On the surface, they present a positive response, tacitly agreeing with the vision, the plan and the requirements. They are very careful about not communicating anything that might jeopardize their position in the company. Their seat isn’t their passion – it’s just the means to a paycheck.

The issue is that wherever they disagree or don’t like something, they quietly and stealthily don’t comply. You unfortunately presume they are doing everything you expect because they are so agreeable. In these cases, months or years can pass before you realize you have a huge problem with a pile of things that haven’t been done. The damage can be massive and even destroy your business.

Now that I have your attention, what’s the answer? How do you smoke out the compliant resister?

The first sign is constant compliance. If they never object, challenge, or express a different point of view, you probably have a compliant resister. No actively engaged player agrees with everything, so if you are seeing 100% compliance, that’s a red flag.

Second, you must define measurables for their seat to assure you they are doing the essential things their seat requires. If they fail to deliver one or more of those essentials week after week, you have a resister. They may not get it, want it or have the capacity. It doesn’t matter why, they are just the wrong player for the seat and you need to replace them before they do significant damage to your company.

Don’t let their pleasant demeanors fool you. Clean out your compliant resisters.