Leading change is never easy, but in some contexts it’s especially difficult. Ask Elaine Weinstein. A former HR executive at KeySpan, she encountered strong resistance to change when management at the unionized utility decided to implement some new HR and workflow processes that would eliminate redundancy. “Front-line employees really resisted this—they were very married to the old processes, even though they were tedious and time consuming,” she says.

But Weinstein persevered and eventually won buy-in from the front lines. What’s noteworthy is not simply that she was able to turn around a deeply dug-in work force, but how she went about doing it. One of the most effective techniques she employed: role-play.

Don’t scoff. Role-playing might sound hokey, but done right it can be a powerful tool to effect change. Weinstein, currently executive vice president at the New York City-based consultancy Mullin & Associates/Lincolnshire International, offers the following advice for using role-play to win over change resisters:

1 HAVE EMPLOYEES PERFORM SKITS CONTRASTING THE OLD AND THE NEW. Change-initiative goals can seem like abstract, empty management-speak to the rank and file. To communicate the value of the proposed changes, Weinstein selected front-line employees who were already on board with the change to act out scenarios for their colleagues, contrasting the old processes with the new.

The scenes highlighted that using the new processes would make their work easier and leave them more time for more interesting tasks, she said. As a bonus, this role-play exercise served as a quality check on the change initiative’s goals. “We learned that if you can’t demonstrate it, throw it out—the language is meaningless.”

2 USE ROLE-PLAY TO PREPARE “TRUST FIGURES” TO BE CHANGE AGENTS. Change efforts elicit fear. And when people are fearful, they are less likely to trust what they hear from on high. Aware of this, Weinstein and her team identified “trust figures”—well-liked, well-respected middle managers and individual performers who were strong communicators and had been with the organization for a while—and recruited them to be change agents.

To prepare them to persuade in the face of concerted resistance, Weinstein and her team had them role-play dialogues like this one:

Resister: Yeah, I hear what you say, but I’ve been around a long time—this sounds like another “Flavor of the Month.”

Change Agent: Help me understand what happened before. (Gives Resister time to vent.) If I explain to you why this time will be different, will you hear me out? (Change Agent lists why she believes this initiative will be successful.)

Resister: You really drank the Kool-Aid!

Change Agent: (smiles) Have I ever said something untrue to you? Can you trust me a little bit here? How about we meet again in three weeks to share our experiences? You tell me what you’ve seen and heard that supports or doesn’t support what I’m telling you, and I’ll tell you more of what I’ve learned. OK?

The goal of this exercise was to help change agents use their status as trusted employees to persuade resisters to suspend disbelief and consider that the change might be positive. “Ideally,” says Weinstein, “the change agent gets her colleagues to look at the changes around them with fresh eyes and see their value, in the process converting them into believers.”

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Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay is the editor of Harvard Management Update. She can be reached at cduvernay@harvardbusiness.org.

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