Eliminating Resistance with Roy van Griensven

Roy Van Griensven, Head of Commercial Excellence at LANXESS, discusses his innovative approach to organizational transformation that challenges traditional change management methodologies. He explains how conventional consulting-led transformations often fail because they rely on top-down mandates and extrinsic motivation, leading to passive resistance from employees.

Instead, Roy advocates for a servant leadership approach that focuses on intrinsic motivation through structured autonomy, psychological safety, and bottom-up engagement. His method involves inspiring people with possibilities, creating safe environments for reflection on challenges, and then supporting employee-driven projects that align with business objectives.

The conversation covers the importance of adaptive capacity as a leading indicator, the shift from managing change to changing management approaches, and how to create sustainable behavioral change by involving people in designing solutions rather than imposing them.

Roy emphasizes that people don't resist change itself, but rather the feeling of being changed by others, and argues that leaders should take accountability for transformation failures rather than blaming employee resistance.