This week a couple of my friends are facing redundancy. It’s not the first time for them as they work in the finance industry and in this particular organisation they seem to be constantly “right-sizing”. That’s one of the management phrases which is supposed to sound professional and action orientated although after numerous rounds of “right-sizing” one has to ask why didn’t they get it right the first time? Or the second? Or the third time? My conversations with them inspired this post on 6 skills for thriving during organisational change. Here goes:
1. Manage Your Thoughts And Emotions
You’ll experience allsorts of emotions as you go through change. Normal responses include denial, fear, anxiety, resistance, excitement and then finally acceptance. As you go on this journey try tuning in to your inner dialogue. You might find yourself saying, “I’m looking forward to this change and can’t wait”. Or you might find yourself thinking “if only” and dwelling on the past. The skill is to make a choice. Manage your thoughts and emotions and choose.
2. Learn From The Past And Focus On The Future
You only have a finite amount of energy and what’s in the past is in the past. Learn from it and turn your energy to what you want to create in the future. The past is a nice place to visit every now and then but staying there doesn’t really help you or the people around you.
3. Be Flexible Rather Than Rigid
In times of stress it’s easy to lose our perspective and become both rigid in our thoughts and behaviours. Challenge your thinking and your behaviour and remember adaptability is a great quality in any profession. That adaptability starts with flexible thought and flexible behaviours.
4. Blend Rather Than Break
Although work takes up a great deal of our time, work should not define you as a person. Remember that you have other resources around you in times of uncertainty that can give you certainty but you are probably taking them for granted. During change you can lean on family, friends, groups,hobbies, health and interests. Find the right blend and ask yourself do you live to work or work to live?
5. Be Proactive Rather Than Reactive
Work out what you can change and what you can’t and focus your energy on the stuff you can change. It’s easy to get caught up in the trap of focusing on what concerns you at the expense of what you can control. Busy complaining that it’s another major change to deal with? Putting your energy into wondering why the company is downsizing, re-allocating budgets? Don’t bother, you can’t change it and it’s sapping your energy.
6. Be comfortable with how lacking organisations can be when it comes to the human aspect of change.
Strategy, policies, procedures, technology, communication programmes are all components found in most change initiatives. There is generally an army of central specialists and resources allocated to these components and it’s backed up by “best practice” in HR and change management theory. What is often ignored is the human dimension of change such as, values, beliefs, feelings and relationships. Managing these aspects of change is generally left to your line manager who has little training in doing so. Be comfortable with this and focus on skills 1-5 until things change and organisations wake up to a big reason why change initiatives fail or great ideas don’t get off the ground. They will eventually, everything evolves.
About The Author - David Ogilvie
I am one of three directors at The Resilience Development Company and I help teams, leaders and organisations identify and overcome the internal blockers of change. I have an unwavering curiosity about the impact of middle management on the day-to-day life and engagement levels of people around them and believe education and up-skilling of these people is key to solving many of the challenges that organisations and teams face. I’d be interested in your thoughts and connecting with you. Please like and share this post if it’s appealed to you in some way.
