Ted Kinni: I ran across reactance in a recently published book, The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas, by Loran Nordgren, an organizational psychologist and professor at the Kellogg School of Management, and David Schonthal, a clinical professor at Kellogg and director of its venture accelerator program. Nordgren and Schonthal seek to add what they call friction theory to the discipline of change management, arguing that corporate change initiatives often fail because leaders focus their attention on attracting people to their cause, while neglecting four frictions that work against change: inertia, effort, emotion, and yes, reactance.