From Resistance to Readiness: How Industrial Leaders Can Earn Trust During Change
In industrial environments, change doesn’t fail because people are unwilling to adapt. It fails because they don’t trust what’s being asked of them…or who’s asking.
And that trust isn’t earned through a vision statement or a one-time training session.
For organizations in oil and gas, energy, and utilities, change management is often seen as a technical or procedural issue. But the deeper truth is this: transformation is personal. And trust is the currency that determines whether it succeeds.
Resistance Is a Signal, Not a Problem
Too often, leadership views resistance as friction to be managed. But resistance is rarely about defiance. It’s a communication method. A signal that something isn’t landing.
“You can hear it in the quiet. You can feel it when teams disengage,” said Sandy Nolette, Change Management Practitioner and Technical Business Analyst. “When people don’t trust the process, they stop giving you their best thinking.”
In distributed, shift-based, high-risk environments, that disengagement shows up in subtle ways. Operators revert to legacy tools. Supervisors delay adoption. New systems sit idle. The project appears to be complete, but transformation hasn’t taken root.
Why Trust is So Fragile in Industrial Settings
Industrial teams aren’t change-averse. They’re change-experienced.
They’ve seen transformation efforts promised and abandoned. They’ve worked through go-lives that didn’t stick. They’ve shouldered the fallout when systems didn’t deliver as expected.
That history creates what some experts call “change scar tissue.” And once that sets in, no amount of top-down messaging will rebuild confidence.
“You can’t build trust on top of a broken relationship,” said Betsy Bond, Senior Director of Program Delivery at Prosci. “You have to start by repairing that before expecting adoption.”
The problem isn’t that trust doesn’t exist. It’s that it has been stretched and tested. And for transformation to succeed, leadership must earn it again.
Case in Point: A Trust Breakdown in the Control Room
During Dexcent’s recent industrial change management webinar, Peter Enns, Digitalization Director at Suncor, shared a story that illustrates the real cost of broken trust.
A control room operator was so skeptical of a new system that they let a preventable incident unfold, one the system was specifically designed to avoid. The message was clear: “I don’t believe in this tool. And I wasn’t part of the decision to use it.”
It wasn’t sabotage. It was a cry for credibility.
The turning point came only when leadership returned to the floor, acknowledged the failure, and re-engaged the team in dialogue.
Trust Isn’t a Soft Skill. It’s a Strategic Imperative.
In safety-critical environments, trust determines whether people follow procedures or find workarounds. Whether they escalate concerns or stay silent. Whether they fully adopt the change or just go through the motions.
“The biggest wins we had came from listening more than talking,” said Peter Enns. “Teams knew the change was coming. What they needed was proof that it would be worth it.”
Building that proof doesn’t come from a single kickoff meeting. It’s built through consistency, visibility, and responsiveness.
Here’s how.
Five Ways to Build Trust During Industrial Change
1. Address the Past Before Pushing the Future
If your team has experienced failed rollouts, name it. Don’t pretend this time is different. Prove it is. Acknowledge the challenges they’ve faced and explain how your approach has changed.
2. Make Leadership Visible and Accessible
Executives can’t lead change from conference calls. Presence matters. Walk the floor. Hold informal check-ins. Listen to what’s actually happening, not just what’s reported.
“When leaders stay engaged, it builds credibility,” said Peter Enns. “It signals that the change is real and that it matters.”
3. Invite Input Early. And Use It
Consultation isn’t a box to check. It’s a commitment to collaboration. Involve end users during the planning phase, not after the decision has been made.
4. Reinforce Through Action, Not Just Words
If teams raise issues, respond visibly. If something isn’t working, adapt. When people see their input turn into action, trust grows.
5. Build a Feedback Loop That Never Ends
Don’t wait until post-mortems to evaluate success. Make feedback part of operations. Measure behavioural adoption, not just usage stats. Ask what feels easy, what feels hard, and what needs to change.
From Compliance to Confidence
The goal isn’t to get teams to comply. It’s to help them believe.
That shift, from passive acceptance to active ownership, is what transforms change from an initiative into a movement.
“People have to let go of what made them successful before,” said Betsy Bond. “That’s not easy. But with support and clarity, they can do it.”
When trust is strong, resistance fades. Adoption accelerates. And the change starts to feel like something people do for themselves, not something done to them.
Ready to Make Trust Your Competitive Advantage?
At Dexcent, we help organizations go beyond checkbox change. Our strategies are grounded in field realities, behavioural science, and lessons from real transformations in high-consequence environments.
Download the free eBook, Beyond the Checkbox, to learn how leaders at Suncor, Enbridge, and Prosci turned skepticism into sustained success.
Let’s build change your teams will believe in.
