Engaging in imposed change
So the word has come down, things are going to be different around here. It’s a restructure, it’s a new business model, a new system, a new anything. You don’t understand it, you didn’t approve it and you are not sure that you like it…so how do you buy in to the new thing?
It’s possible to engage in change on a variety of levels, that first emotional response to the news that leaves us feeling a sense of loss, fear for the future, irritation that things just seem to keep changing (and for no apparent reason). Once you get past the emotional response, you are in a position to explore the change from an intellectual perspective.
Here are four quick hints to getting your head around the change.
- Understand why the change is happening, what has driven it and the best possible outcome as a result of that change
- Understand how the change can add value to your role, make things easier, make things better (in fact ask yourself if you would have planned that change given half a chance)
- Understand how the change can challenge and develop you, identify ways that the change will take you in the direction you want to go
- Understand how the change will help the important things stay the same, identify the things which are not changing as a result of the new initiative
If you can’t understand (or agree with) why the change is happening, if you can’t find personal and organisational value from the change, if you won’t develop in the new world and if the really important things will be lost as a result of the change – then don’t embrace it – get the hell outta there!
