Change : How Do You Feel About It? All Depends on Your Perspective
Ros O'Connor • September 15, 2017
When you initiate change, whether in your private life or in the work space, how does that make you feel? Excited, determined, empowered, enthusiastic! You feel pumped for new beginnings and a fresh outlook on your life.
However, on the flip side, when you have experienced change that has been imposed on you, do you have these same feelings? Highly unlikely. More accurately you probably feel a bit scared and worried, daunted, dread the thought, anxious and disillusioned.
There are a lot of conflicting emotions between these two scenarios. Why? Because one is in control and the other has no control. One knows where and what they want to achieve and are amped and upbeat about the whole thing. The other is in the dark and has no idea what to expect or what the end result will look like and are worried about the whole situation.
Organisational change is something that most of us have journeyed through at some point in our career. It is also something that has a very large failure rate and the main reason for that high percentage of failure is that organisations don't view the change process as a psychological journey for everyone involved. Change management needs to be well planned and well communicated. The change leaders need to remember that they are dealing with individuals who need to be engaged in the process. They are unsure about their future and have concerns about their job security as well as the fear that accompanies a disruption to their familiar routines and habits. Any change needs to be approached from a personal level, with engagement and a real connection with the people who will be impacted.
Change needs to have everyone on board for it to work, from the head honcho down through the management structure to all the employees. Everyone needs to be involved and actively energised in the process. Frequent communication in an open forum that fosters a sense of trust is a must. Even if there is to be redundancies, at least people will be kept informed and respect the process, even if they don't like the end result. It's when there is secrecy and an uncommunicative agenda from the leadership that fear and anger take over.
If people are well informed about the reasons for the change and kept in the loop throughout the whole process, there is a much higher chance that the change program will succeed.
What are your experiences with change in the workplace? Have they been well managed or were they a bit of a disaster? Let's hear about your experiences, good and bad.
Ros O'Connor
Thinking DNA www.thinkingdna.com.au
human capital and innovation are the source of all long term economic success
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No one person has all the answers. A collective of ideas will always have a better chance of success
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Is your business in need of some serious rethinking and re-energising? Are you and your people getting the best result for their efforts? Maybe all you need is to really look at your people with a different perspective. Maybe they are not using their thinking to the best advantage because they are not being given the chance to do so in their role. We all approach our thinking from a different perspective. We all approach a task in a different way. Drop a group of people onto a deserted island and watch how all of them approach the survival issues. Some will analyse the situation and rationally and logically try to resolve the issues at hand. Others will set out to organise and structure the processes that need to be achieved for survival. Others will engage with everyone so that the group dynamic is working and not fracturing, whilst others will be thinking of different ways and concepts to move forward, survive and even thrive in the environment. All together, as a Whole Brain, they will work out a plan that will keep them alive. If they go off on their own, chances are they will struggle. Some of our biggest companies are going through turmoil in their boardrooms at the moment; aka AMP, CBA and so on. If they looked at the individual thinking perspectives of each board member, they may find that they don't have a diversity in their thinking, which has lead them down a path of an internal and external nightmare to say the least! Our mental defaults can lead to mental blind spots and as a result act as a roadblock to making the best balanced decision. Get in touch with me to unlock the thinking diversity in your business. Better teams and better results are what I can achieve for your organisation. Learn to better use the talents within your team, for better staff engagement, with inevitable better business success. Ros O'Connor ros@thinkingdna.com.au 0422 609 010 Thinking DNA - www.thinkingdna.com.au human capital and innovation are the source of all long term economic success
Fear is such a personal thing. What one person fears, someone else wouldn't give a second thought to. We do indeed set limits because of fear. If we fear something we don't want to do it or be put in a situation where it might happen. If that occurs, we panic. It can be paralysing. We become nervous, break out in a sweat and sometimes highly agitated. Depending on the type of fear, it can be quite debilitating and make life unbearable. I live in an area now that has a lot of beautiful parklands and waterways and along with that an extensive bike pathway system. Great, my husband said. We'll get you a bike and we can go for some lovely bike rides on the weekend. The trouble with that is I have never had a bike, even as a kid and never really learnt to ride one, not well anyway. I also as a kid had a bad accident on a bike on one of the rare occasions that I actually rode one. Soooo, I avoided ever riding one again. I had a fear, irrational as it may sound, of getting on a bike and riding it. Now I know most of you are thinking Whatttt!!! Has a fear of riding a bike!! I know, but there it is. Now, this however is the first step to overcoming this fear. Owning the fear. I have told the world here in this article what I fear and you know what? It sounds ridiculous. But fear is not rational. Our mind does things that we don't want it to but we can overcome them. There are all sorts of things that people are fearful of. Flying, crowded places, driving, dogs .... I could go on and on. Often the fear can be traced back to a certain time and place but ultimately to get past the fear we need to face it head on but at a pace that we are comfortable with and with the help of an encouraging friend as an enabler if possible. So tomorrow I am going to buy myself a bike (and a helmet) and get out there and start riding it. Familiarity is the thing that will get you past the fear and stop you being limited by that fear. Practice it. Do it over and over and over and over again. You will gradually get used to it. Some may take a short time, others much longer but eventually it will become something that you don't fear. And the sense of achievement will be something that will give you cause to pat yourself on the back. No one else will look twice but you will know and that's what matters. Face your fears. It's good for your soul. Ros O'Connor Thinking DNA - www.thinkingdna.com.au human capital and innovation are the source of all long term economic success
