The Luddites Were Right
We still use “Luddite” as an insult for anyone who questions new technology. Someone who refuses to use the latest system is a Luddite. Someone who questions AI is a Luddite. Someone who says, “We tried this before and it didn't work,” is probably a Luddite too.
The Luddites were supposed to be frightened of technology. They smashed machines because they were scared of the future. Except that isn't quite the story.
The Luddites were skilled textile workers in the early nineteenth century. They were protesting against machinery and working practices that they believed were undermining their livelihoods, reducing the value of their skills and damaging the quality of their work. They weren't simply saying, “We don't like machines.” They were asking a more awkward question: “What is this machine going to do to our work?”
Modern managers should recognise that question.
Today, a new technology arrives with a business case. It will save time, reduce costs, improve productivity and make the organisation more efficient. The benefits are carefully calculated. The consequences are often less carefully considered.
A manager sees AI reducing administrative work. The employee sees the additional checking needed when AI gets something wrong. A manager sees a new system making a process faster. The employee sees three extra screens and another set of data to enter. A manager sees standardisation. The professional sees the loss of judgement needed when every customer doesn't fit the standard process.
Managers see the business case. Employees see the consequences.
That difference is often built into the way change is managed. Senior managers design the proposal, build the business case and decide what success will look like. Employees are then consulted about how the change will be implemented. By that stage, the important decisions may already have been made. Consultation becomes a request for acceptance rather than an opportunity to influence the decision.
Then somebody who actually does the work raises a concern. The response can be predictable. The employee is described as resistant to change. Negative. Old-fashioned. Not seeing the bigger picture.
Sometimes that description is fair. Some people resist change because they don't like change. Some are protecting comfortable routines. Some fear losing status, influence or their job. But sometimes the person saying no has noticed something everyone else has missed.
This is where the conventional management narrative becomes uncomfortable. Organisations say they want employees to speak up, challenge decisions and identify risks. They talk about psychological safety and encourage people to be honest. Then somebody actually says, “I don't think this will work.”
Suddenly they are being difficult. We want challenge. Just not that much challenge.
The label can end the conversation before the concern has even been examined. It turns a question about the change into a judgement about the person asking the question. That is a management failure.
If nobody is resisting a major change programme, don't automatically assume everyone is convinced. You may simply have created an environment where nobody wants to be the person who says the emperor has forgotten his trousers.
The answer isn't to listen to every objection and abandon every change. Some objections will be self-interested. Some will be based on outdated assumptions. Some changes really are necessary. The answer is to investigate the resistance before dismissing it.
Before describing someone as a Luddite, ask five practical questions. What problem with the change are they seeing? What will happen to the customer or service when the change meets reality? What extra work, risk or skill loss could it create? What do the people doing the job every day know that the project team might not know? And what could we test before committing to the change?
These questions turn resistance into useful intelligence. They also change the conversation. Instead of asking an employee to prove that the change is a bad idea, managers start asking what can be learned before the change becomes expensive or difficult to reverse.
Every organisation has a process on paper and another process that actually keeps the place functioning. The people doing the work every day usually know the difference. That knowledge can be inconvenient. It can also be valuable.
The employee who says, “That won't work,” may not have a better business case. They may have something more useful: experience of what happens when the policy meets reality.
The Luddites did not stop the march of technology. The machines won. But winning the argument about technology is not the same as proving that every consequence of technological change is good.
The machine can be more efficient. The organisation can be more productive. And the service can still become worse.
Sometimes the person saying no to innovation isn't the problem. Sometimes they are the only person who has noticed the problem.
The real test of an organisation that claims to welcome innovation is not whether people can say yes. It is whether they can safely say no.
The Luddites had hammers. Modern managers have PowerPoint.
We should probably be more worried about the PowerPoint.
blairmcpherson.co.uk
