Embracing change - in your business, career and life.

Gain the competitive advantage

The current pandemic has forced individuals, businesses and whole countries to change. Even before this, advances in technology, environmental concerns, political changes and disruptive business models were reshaping our view of our work and life. Leaders get so much advice on how to lead change initiatives successfully but what about helping those on the receiving end of change to cope?

Many changes in our lives are out of our control, but what about the smaller, common challenges, such as company restructuring or redundancy, which affect us at both a personal and professional level? Change can be painful because it affects our whole identity. As change becomes faster and more commonplace, the way we respond to it could become our competitive advantage.

Coping with “constant change” in businesses

Globally, many businesses will be in a process of change: strategic shifts, mergers, product development and so on. These kinds of changes can impact hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of staff, but when our senior leaders don’t communicate some of these changes, challenges occur. Ilaria Gregotti is VP and Global Head of Organisational Effectiveness responsible for running many of their global HR transformation programmes. 

She emphasises the “human side of change”, acknowledging that we are in a stage of “constant change in businesses,” and that “leaders have got to get tuned into how people react to change.” They need to understand “what drives people's behaviours in their organisation, understanding the foundations of how people tend to react to change so that they can catch those and adjust their styles and …make the most of the opportunities that they have with the organisation.”

The effect of change on employees

Improperly communicated changes within make us feel vulnerable, anxious or angry. If communication is unclear and with inadequate progress updates, a vacuum is created, which can quickly erode performance. Part of the challenge for leaders is balancing the mechanical elements of transformation merger or a cost cutting act, with the human side of change. Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s work in the 1960s on the stages of change in the grieving process include initial shock or surprise, then an element of denial, followed by anger, followed by low mood and energy. If mismanaged or misdirected, these kinds of feelings can infect an entire workplace.

Crucially, this is where we need to think about the pivot point, the final stage, where people start to experiment, consider different solutions, and maybe accept that changes aren’t going to magically disappear. Individuals and teams should aim to think about how they can make it work; practise new behaviours, learn new skills and master new approaches, so they can find a new way to be successful.

How to cope with change more successfully

The key to success is to find a way to quickly move through this cycle; in an ever-changing world, our speed of recovery could become our advantage. Uncertainty is really about lack of control so how can we recognise the uncontrollable and focus our energies on the controllable?

This diagram is a useful exercise to illustrate where our time and energies are placed. Fighting, resisting and venting about aspects out of our control or influence (the outer circle) is often where the majority of our energy goes: I don’t agree with the strategy of the business; the exchange rate has changed our pricing; our competitors have launched a product that’s affecting us.

However, the middle and inner circles are where we should be investing our time and energy. In the middle circle, consider what can we influence. It might be the way we prepare our team or the way we work with peers across our networks; stay close to our customers’ mindset and choices.

The inner circle is where we should maximise our energy, devoting at least 70% of our time here. We aim to find out as much as we can from our senior leaders in order to obtain a realistic picture of timelines, headcounts and future expectations. Then we should reflect and make a proactive plan, preparing for the worst-case scenario. Ensure your cv is up-to-date, look for different job opportunities and make a list of all the possible ‘What-if?’ scenarios. It might be worth getting an external view, a friend or a mentor in a different industry, just to ensure you are taking a rational view. If we can shift our mindset away from uncertainty, we feel more in control and have the energy to use our influence where we can.

Campbell McPherson, international business advisor and author of The Change Catalyst[1], highlights our tendency to place ourselves in the role of the victim, perhaps allocating the role of persecutor to our leaders. Fundamentally though, this keeps us in “victim mode”. If we can “reframe the entire situation” seeing ourselves as a “creator,” we should start to see the persecutor “as a challenger”, making us more likely to “create solutions to these challenges” instead of passively waiting for a “rescuer”. If we can see change as “constructive”, we are more likely to be able to regain control and move forward with purpose and energy.

How our job shapes our identity 

For many of us, change can manifest itself quite painfully when we lose our jobs, typically through redundancy, retirement, family demands on our time or a re-structuring. The effect of this on our psyche and our wider sense of identity should not be underestimated. Ade Adepitan MBE, former Paralympic basketball player, speaks of the pain experienced on retirement from his professional playing career: “that transition…from athlete to living in the everyday world…is probably one of the hardest changes I’ve ever had in my life…You suddenly feel your identity is being washed away…I was scared and lonely.”

Adepitan has gone on to have a very successful media career in spite of this challenge, but this insight raises a key point about how much of our identity is taken up by what we do as a job. Our personal identity is in some sense locked into our profession. One of the first questions asked when we meet someone new concerns what we do for work. This creates the impression that your status and your value is hinged upon your job; being unemployed can sometimes feel like a confession.

However, if we can start to view change as an opportunity to think differently, necessity can be a real innovator, forcing us to redesign our futures from a new starting point.

Embrace and enjoy change

James Kerr, best-selling author of Legacy[1], a book about the lessons we can learn from the All Blacks, talks of how we need to re-frame and embrace pressure in order to deliver the best results. The All Blacks have done so well because “they realise that people play best when they're really enjoying it.” It’s about “bringing a sense of gratitude and a sense of the moment and the privilege that it is to pull on a black jersey and run out there”

This shift in mindset from pressure to privilege is crucial. Rather than being weakened by the change that’s forced upon us, we need to embrace the opportunity and figure out how we can carve a new path for ourselves. Amidst change, disruption and strategic shifts, business leaders are going to appreciate the people who are not only brilliant at their job, but those who are chameleons who are capable of adapting to multiple situations: this is the DNA of the future high performer.

Listen back to discover more

Simply click the link below to get access to the podcast —Inside The Mind of Champions, episode 3: Embracing Change: Avoiding the Identity Crisis

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References & Citations

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legacy-James-Kerr/dp/147210353X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=legacy&qid=1592390318&sr=8-1

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Catalyst-Successful-Sustainable-Business/dp/1119386268/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16P1GUJR2PJDO&dchild=1&keywords=the+change+catalyst&qid=1592385384&sprefix=the+change+cat%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1