Pushback is part of every rollout. The people pushing back aren't being difficult – change asks something of people, so it’s understandable that they may want to resist it.
The good news: the objections you'll hear follow a pattern. The same four come up again and again across change management, and once you know what they actually mean, responding to them gets a lot easier.
By the end of this lesson, you'll have language for the resistance you're likely to face.
The four typical objections to change
1. "I already have my system"
What they're telling you: their personal system works for them and they're worried about having to start over – or do everything twice.
What to say: "The work we share as a team lives in Todoist – so we all have the same picture of what's happening. That's useful for you too: when your workload is visible, we can protect your time, focus, and make better decisions about what comes your way."
2. "We tried something like this before"
What they're telling you: they've been through a failed rollout, and they don't believe this will end differently.
What to say: "You're right that it didn't stick last time. This time we’re committing fully, and we have a plan for what happens after the first week."
3. "The team just wasn't feeling it"
What they're telling you: they didn't see adoption, and they read that as rejection. But "not feeling it" almost always has a more specific cause – nobody knew what to do when they logged in, or nobody had been given a reason that meant something to them personally.
What to say: "When you say they weren't feeling it – what did that look like? Did they log in and not know what to do, or did they not log in at all?" Getting specific about what happened tells you which stage the team got stuck at – and we have a map for that.
4. "It's too complicated"
What they're telling you: they opened it, the surface area was too large, and there was no clear path from "open the app" to "do my work." What they need is the specific slice of Todoist that's relevant to their role – and your job is to help them find it.
What to say: "Let's take five minutes, go through it together, and clear out anything that isn't relevant to how you work. We should end up with a workflow that suits your role."
Before you move on: think about the person on your team most likely to push back. Which of these four objections do you expect from them? Write down what you'll say before the conversation happens – it's much easier to have that language ready than to find it in the moment.
You've made the case and handled the pushback. In the next lesson, you'll learn what happens in weeks two and three. Probably the most important stage.