I developed the Pyramid of Resistance in Baghdad.

That’s not a metaphor. I was serving as an Army intelligence officer, watching our change efforts in the district generate consequences we didn’t intend — what we call second and third order effects. Every time we conducted a security operation, the people we detained came out of the system angrier than before and doubled down on their resistance. We were making things worse.

The assumption we had been operating under was that all resistance was the same resistance. It wasn’t. And once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.

I’ve since taken what I learned on that battlefield and applied it to health, wellness, and human services organizations navigating change. The stakes are different. The framework is the same. And the mistake — treating all resistance identically — is just as costly.

Why 70% of change efforts fail

Change management has a dismal track record. Roughly 70% of change management attempts fail. Leaders throw up their hands, blame their teams, and resort to the same blunt instruments: restructuring, mass layoffs, a reshuffling of the org chart. Then they wonder why the culture didn’t change along with the boxes.

The real problem isn’t that people resist change. It’s that leaders don’t know which people are resisting, why they’re resisting, or what to actually do about it. They treat a complex intelligence problem like a simple logistics problem. Fire a percentage. Reorganize the rest. Hope for the best.

That’s not precision. That’s panic.

The Pyramid of Resistance

Picture 100% of the people resisting a change you are trying to implement, stacked into a pyramid.

The bottom 60%: “This Is Hard”

These are your frontline workers — the people delivering health, wellness, or human services directly to the people in your care. They are not ideologically opposed to your change. They are exhausted. They are running on autopilot because autopilot is how the human brain conserves energy. The old way lives in a different part of their brain than new learning does. It is literally easier for them to keep doing what they’ve always done.

In Baghdad, this group had very specific concerns underneath their resistance: safety and security, economic survival, access to essential services for their families. Once we identified those concerns, we could address them directly. The goal was to make it easier for them to support the change than to resist it.

In your organization, ask them two questions: what do you love about the old way that we should preserve? And what do you hate about the old way that we can eliminate? When you give people back the margin they were spending on things they hated, they have energy left to learn something new.

You don’t fire these people. You redesign the path.

The middle 30%: “You’re Doing It Wrong”

This group is not resisting because they don’t care. They’re resisting because they care deeply and they genuinely believe your approach is the wrong one. These are your experienced clinicians, your seasoned administrators, your veteran case managers who have watched change initiative after change initiative come and go — and fail.

In Baghdad, this was the mid-level leadership of the opposition: people with real ideological commitments who were directing the frontline activity of the 60%. You couldn’t ignore them or arrest your way through them. You had to sit across from them, give them honor according to their culture, and actually listen.

In your organization, this means focus groups, town halls, one-on-one interviews, genuine qualitative data gathering. It means going in with humility and a real willingness to be changed by what you hear. Sometimes you’ll discover they’re right about something and you’ll need to modify your approach. Sometimes you’ll be able to show them that what you’re proposing actually addresses the concerns they have, just in a way they didn’t expect. Either way, you have to do the work.

You don’t fire these people. You bring them to the table.

The top 10%: “This Threatens Me”

Now we get to the hard part.

The top 10% are not resisting your change because it’s hard or because they disagree with your direction. They are resisting because the new system — the improved, healthier, more accountable system you are trying to build — will cost them something they are not willing to give up: power, money, psychological supply.

These are the people who have learned to exploit the vulnerabilities in the old system. They may intimidate, coerce, manipulate, and control — and they are often very, very good at their clinical or technical job. High competence. Low character. Everyone in the building knows who they are. Nobody tells leadership.

In Baghdad, we went after these people with security operations. In your organization, the equivalent is investigation, objective evaluation, and — when confirmed — termination. Not a lateral move to a different department. Not a demotion. Removal. Because wherever you put them, they will poison the well.

A severance package that limits the drama on the way out is often worth it. In some cases, investigation and formal action is necessary to ensure they cannot harm your organization after they leave.

You fire these people. Precisely. With evidence. And without apology.

Precision over panic

Mass restructuring is the organizational equivalent of a mass security sweep. It disrupts everyone, radicalizes the people who were on the fence, and does nothing to address the actual source of the problem. Worse, it destroys the institutional knowledge you need to deliver good care.

The Pyramid of Resistance is a precision framework. It forces you to think — before you act — about who you are keeping, what changes you are making, and why. It identifies the specific people who must go. Everyone else gets either support or a seat at the table.

That is how you implement change in a health, wellness, or human services organization without burning it down in the process.

If your organization is navigating a change initiative and you want to apply the Pyramid of Resistance to your specific context, I’d love to talk. Book a consultation at tenaybenes.com/consultant.

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