That is a controversial statement. Let me explain from where it comes. An old-time organization development (OD) consultant named Jerry Harvey came up with this notion, and I've never forgotten it. Jerry said, and I believe, that people don't necessarily resist change, what they resist is pain, the pain associated with some but not all changes.
Folks play the lottery in the hopes of winning a life-changing amount of money, not much resistance there. Other folks accept career-changing promotions, without resistance. Lots of my students over the years would be the first-ever college graduate in their families, a financially difficult sacrifice on the family's part but one happily made. When the crime rates in the U.S. dropped over the last twenty years, nobody wanted to bring back the higher rates. I remember when we all got immunized for polio and it was no longer a risk, we loved the change. All of these represent changes that were not resisted. Why? Because they all were viewed as improvements in the lives of the people involved.
On the other hand, many organizational changes represent, in one way or another, pain. New technology causes a worker's hard-earned skills to be devalued - that hurts. A reorganization causes disruption in, or termination of, friendship patterns among coworkers - that is painful too. A new boss brings the risk of worsened boss-subordinate relations, raising anxiety. Changes that make your life less good are resisted.
As managers, we need to structure changes affecting our employees in ways that are widely perceived, on balance, as positive. This is easy to say and often difficult to do. However, understanding the underlying principle helps. A colloquial way of remembering it is to think of the song lyric from Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down."
