The Plastic Bag Challenge: Why People Resist Change, And Why That Doesn't Mean You're Wrong

Remember when supermarkets stopped handing out free plastic bags?

People absolutely lost it.

Customers complained. Social media lit up. People threatened to boycott supermarkets they had shopped at for years.

There were arguments at checkouts.

Headlines everywhere.

You would have thought someone had announced the end of civilisation.

And then something funny happened.

People adapted.

Reusable bags ended up in the boot of the car. People started carrying them into the supermarket. Eventually, the outrage disappeared.

The new behaviour became normal.

And before long, most of us barely remembered why we were so annoyed in the first place.

That, to me, is one of the simplest lessons in organisational change.

People don't necessarily resist change because the change is bad.

They resist it because it disrupts what they already know.

And leaders need to understand the difference.

Change Is Literally Your Job

If you're running a business or leading a team, standing still isn't really an option.

Markets change.

Technology changes.

Customers change.

Competitors change.

Costs change.

Expectations change.

So businesses have to change too.

You introduce new technology.

You change processes.

You restructure teams.

You create new roles.

You remove old ones.

You introduce KPIs.

You automate work.

You ask people to operate differently from the way they did yesterday.

And almost every time, somebody will tell you why it won't work.

Sometimes lots of people.

That's when leadership gets interesting.

Because hearing resistance does something to leaders too.

You start questioning the decision.

Maybe we moved too quickly.

Maybe people aren't ready.

Maybe the system is wrong.

Maybe we need another workshop.

Maybe we should slow the whole thing down.

Sometimes you should.

But sometimes you're simply experiencing the organisational equivalent of everyone forgetting their reusable shopping bag.

Resistance Is Not The Same As Failure

This is where I think leaders often get caught.

We confuse discomfort with evidence.

Someone doesn't like the new system, therefore the system must be wrong.

Someone is angry about the restructure, therefore the restructure must be wrong.

People are complaining about a new process, therefore the process isn't working.

But those things are not automatically connected.

Change removes familiarity.

And familiarity is powerful.

People know how the old system works.

They know where they sit in it.

They know who has influence.

They know how to get things done.

They know which shortcuts work.

They know what they're good at.

Then you change the environment.

Suddenly people start asking completely different questions.

Can I still do my job?

Will I still be valuable?

Am I going to look stupid using this new system?

Will automation replace part of what I do?

Do I still have the same influence?

Will I have to learn something new?

Is my role going to change?

What happens to me?

That's why you can build the world's best PowerPoint explaining the business case for change and still have half the room looking horrified.

Because you're explaining the organisation.

They're thinking about themselves.

Leaders Overestimate Logic

This is another trap.

We assume that if the decision is logical, people will accept it logically.

Not necessarily.

You can show the numbers.

Explain the strategy.

Show the customer feedback.

Present the data.

Run training.

Hold town halls.

Answer questions.

Communicate until nobody wants to hear from you ever again.

And people can still resist.

Communication matters enormously.

But communication doesn't remove discomfort.

You cannot PowerPoint someone out of feeling uncertain.

Good change leadership is not about eliminating uncertainty completely.

It is about helping people move through it.

The Change Wave

Most significant change moves through a fairly predictable pattern.

First comes shock.

Why are we changing this?

Then resistance.

This won't work.

We tried something like this before.

The old system was better.

Then something changes.

People start testing it.

They begin understanding it.

They discover the world hasn't ended.

The language shifts.

Actually, this bit is useful.

I didn't realise it could do that.

Maybe this isn't as bad as I thought.

And eventually comes adoption.

The new system simply becomes the system.

The new structure becomes the structure.

The new process becomes the way the business operates.

The danger is that leaders often lose confidence during the resistance phase.

We hear enough noise and think we've made a mistake.

Sometimes there genuinely is a problem and leaders should listen.

But other times you're simply standing in the middle of the wave.

And a wave feels very different when you're underneath it compared with when you've reached the other side.

The Better Question

Instead of asking:

How do I get everyone to love this change?

Ask:

Can the organisation successfully move through the disruption?

That is a much better leadership question.

Because getting universal enthusiasm is probably unrealistic.

You need enough clarity.

Enough resources.

Enough capability.

Enough support.

Enough leadership conviction.

And enough people willing to move.

Your job isn't necessarily to make everybody comfortable.

Your job is to make sure the discomfort is productive rather than destructive.

Stop Selling The Change

One of the fastest ways to lose people is to spend all your time talking about the mechanics.

We're implementing a new CRM.

We're restructuring the department.

We're changing the operating model.

We're introducing AI.

We're moving to a new workflow.

Fantastic.

Nobody wakes up excited about your workflow.

What people actually want to know is:

Where are we going?

Why does this matter?

What problem are we solving?

What happens if we don't change?

What does better look like?

The change itself is rarely inspiring.

The destination can be.

That's what leaders need to sell.

People tolerate a surprising amount of turbulence when they believe the plane is going somewhere worth going.

Find The People Who Will Move

In most organisations, you'll see roughly three groups emerge during change.

The Champions

They see the opportunity quickly.

They experiment.

They help other people.

They bring energy.

Give these people visibility, responsibility and support.

They will help create momentum.

The Fence Sitters

This is normally the biggest group.

They aren't necessarily against the change.

They just don't want to be the first person standing on the dance floor.

They're watching.

Does leadership really mean this?

Is this initiative going to disappear in six months?

Are the champions succeeding?

Is the new system actually working?

The fence sitters matter enormously because once this group starts moving, change becomes normal surprisingly quickly.

The Resisters

Then you have the people who oppose almost every change.

New technology.

New leadership.

New process.

New structure.

New idea.

New coffee machine.

Probably the coffee machine.

Leaders can burn an extraordinary amount of energy trying to convert this group.

Sometimes it works.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Listen to legitimate concerns, absolutely.

But don't build your entire transformation around winning over the people most determined to dislike it.

Focus on creating enough momentum that the organisation moves forward.

Some People Won't Come With You

This is one of the harder realities of leadership.

Sometimes the organisation changes and a person's relationship with the organisation changes too.

Their skills might have been perfectly suited to the old environment.

Their influence might have come from understanding the old system better than anyone else.

Their success might be deeply connected to how things used to work.

Then the business changes.

And suddenly the future doesn't feel particularly attractive to them.

That doesn't automatically make them wrong.

And it doesn't automatically make the organisation wrong.

Sometimes the two have simply stopped heading in the same direction.

Leaders get into trouble when they spend years trying to preserve an old environment for people who don't want the new one.

You cannot build tomorrow's organisation entirely around yesterday's comfort.

The Cost Of Nostalgia

Every company has versions of these sentences:

Back when we started...

Years ago we used to...

We never needed that before...

The old system worked perfectly well...

Sometimes there's wisdom in those comments.

Experience matters.

History matters.

Institutional knowledge matters.

But nostalgia can also become an anchor.

Businesses do not compete against their own past.

They compete in the environment they're operating in now.

Customers don't care that your process worked beautifully in 2019.

Competitors don't wait because your team isn't comfortable with new technology.

The market has absolutely no sentimental attachment to the way you've always done things.

That's the bit businesses forget.

Leadership Creates Productive Discomfort

I don't think great leaders are the people who make change painless.

That's probably impossible.

Great leaders create enough discomfort to generate progress, while providing enough clarity and support that people can move through it.

Too much disruption and people break.

Too little disruption and businesses stagnate.

Leadership sits somewhere in the middle.

Push.

Support.

Listen.

Adjust where necessary.

Keep moving.

And understand the difference between feedback you should act on and discomfort you simply need to lead through.

Remember The Plastic Bag

The next time you're introducing a new system, restructuring a business, rolling out AI, changing a process or fundamentally shifting how your organisation works, remember the plastic bag challenge.

People complained.

People said it wouldn't work.

People wanted the old way back.

Then people adapted.

The outrage faded.

The behaviour changed.

And the new way became normal.

That doesn't mean every change is automatically a good one.

Leaders still need to listen, measure, adapt and sometimes admit when something isn't working.

But resistance alone isn't proof you've made the wrong decision.

Sometimes resistance is simply what change sounds like before adoption.

So the leadership question isn't:

Will everyone like this?

They probably won't.

The better question is:

Is this taking the organisation somewhere it needs to go, and do we have the leadership, resources and conviction to get through the uncomfortable bit?

Because today's ridiculous new idea has a funny habit of becoming tomorrow's:

"We've always done it this way."

And eventually someone will sit in a meeting and say:

"Remember when we first introduced this and everyone hated it?"

And half the room will laugh.

Because by then, they can barely remember what they were fighting so hard to keep.