Tertiary education institutions are facing dramatic changes and resistance from organisational members can be expected. Traditional approaches to change management have emphasised a top-down, technicist influence stream, which ignores the resistance phenomenon. To overcome resistance, a systemic approach, which includes a bottom-up, social and political influence stream, should be used. This influence stream focuses on involving employees in the change event and in creating a change-facilitative environment. The process of dealing with resistance can be expedited by engaging employees, departments and organisations in the development of Transformational Intelligence. It comprises the attitudes, knowledge and skills to drive change from the bottom-up and to participate in change-facilitative rather than change-inhibiting conversations. Transformational Intelligence consists of four dimensions namely Motivational-, Process-, Creative- and Relational-Intelligence. By engaging in the development of Transformational Intelligence, employees, departments and organisations will learn to deal meaningfully with an uncertain future. Furthermore, change initiators can ensure that the considerable resources allocated to change interventions, are utilised effectively.

Keywords: change management, resistance, Transformational Intelligence