A hidden driver of resistance to change
I’ve helped facilitate change most of my career, and I’ve come to recognize the people within organizations who have been shackled by “Golden Handcuffs.”
In most organizations, this shows up as employee resistance to change, especially among long-tenured staff who have learned how to wait out new initiatives. Over time, their employment stability becomes less about loyalty and more about protecting what feels secure.
Golden Handcuffs, if you’re not familiar with the term, is typically defined as the financial incentives designed to keep an employee from moving on until the organization believes it has recouped its investment in that employee. I use it a little differently. In practice, it’s less about the organization’s ROI and more about the employees’ desire for stability.
Long-tenured employees of an organization gain greater financial security. At defined points in tenure, vacation days increase, bonuses may get bigger, and there may be vesting in retirement or stock incentive plans. Organizations plan these incentives to retain their best employees yet, what they ultimately get at about 10 years of tenure is a pool of employees who have been with the company too long to leave without affecting their individual lifestyle. So, they stay on the job doing what little needs to be done to maintain their place in the organization until retirement. Sadly, an employee who joins the company at 30, and is shackled with the Golden Handcuffs at 40, will likely be a mediocre performer for the next 25 years.
It’s no wonder we have a crisis in leadership in many of our larger corporations and nonprofit organizations. Those incentives designed to keep the best and brightest employees end up being the very thing that weighs down the organization. In the largest of organizations, where significant numbers of these employees may hold senior positions, their resistance to change can be so deeply anchored in the current culture, that they effectively prevent the organization from achieving desired and necessary change.
When Golden Handcuffs become a cultural problem
Golden Handcuffs eventually create what I call, “Golden Anchors”; employees who are too vested to leave, too secure in their current position and responsibilities, and too comfortable with their personal lifestyle. They’re the people who quietly preserve the status quo. So, beware of these Golden Anchors, for they are so often the quiet saboteurs of any change initiative within your organization.
They rarely announce themselves as obstructionists; more often, they show up as steady, reasonable, “experienced” voices that quietly keep the organization anchored to what used to work.
Although not all long-term employees become Golden Anchors, it is critical to identify those who have become anchors to the way things are (or were), so that you may pull them up when you need to pilot a new course for change. Golden Anchors are easy to spot because they typically have three or more of the following characteristics:
- Tenure (usually 10 years or more)
- General resistance to any change in their work or home life
- Noted naysayers to any new idea, process, or procedure
- Tagged as “difficult” by others
- Subtlety undermines organizational initiatives in their daily conversations with peers and direct reports
- No desire for additional training or education to further their contribution to the organization
- Performance often just barely meets your expectations
This is not about villainizing tenure, though. Instead, it’s about recognizing when stability has become inertia.
Once you have identified them, you have the difficult task of determining how to reduce, or at least minimize, their impact. Whatever you decide, one thing is certain: You must address, not ignore, your Golden Anchors if you have hope to facilitate change.
Golden Anchors may be the most underestimated barrier to change, because they’re familiar, not because they’re overtly vocal or loud. If you want real movement, you can’t plan around them. You have to name what’s happening and lead through it.
