The Power of Working through Change

We all know change is constant and in today’s business world there are usually many changes going on in our daily lives sometimes to the point of change saturation. Organizational Change Management consultants are expert in helping stakeholders get to their personal “what’s in it for me message” that internalizes the change, helping us want to make the change.

That said, can we recognize our own resistance to change and work to self-adjust? You can control your attitude and choices and look at change as positive. You can seek out as much information as you can to lower the uncertainty that humans naturally dread (an instant reaction related to our fight or flight reaction). See change as something you can use. If we make it easier for people to change, that is a powerful thing. In fact, embracing change is a skill you can develop. Research in psychology, neuroscience and behavioral science provide the answer.

When you change, you are breaking a habit that is hard wired in your brain and you are having to learn something new. Learning something new sounds good, doesn’t it? Continuous learning is important to performance and that continuous learning helps keep us healthy in mind and body. But breaking a habit is difficult and take energy.

Our personality influences our effectiveness in dealing with change. Self-awareness is key. Building our Emotional Intelligence and our growth mindset boosts our ability to change.?Being emotionally intelligent is the underlying structure – the scaffolding – that supports effective responses to events, people…and change. You can work on having a positive attitude and determining what you gain from the change. Choose to believe the change serves you. Positive attitude is contagious so network with people who are enthusiastic about the change. This is why we select Change Champions as the cheerleaders for the changes, helping others work through the changes.

Emotional Intelligence and growth mindset can help us behave in a more agile way, adapting effectively to changing circumstances. Emotional self-management is the Emotional Intelligence capacity that helps us shift from negative to positive. Being emotionally intelligent includes:

???????Self-Awareness: The ability to recognize and understand feelings and emotion, and

???????The ability to understand your responses to situations and other people’s actions.

???????Self-Management: The ability to choose how we think, how we feel, the actions we take, and to motivate ourselves; also known as self-regulation.

???????Social Awareness: The ability to recognize and understand the feelings and emotions of others. This includes skills in empathy.

???????Relationship Management: The ability to express your emotions and to communicate effectively.

Growth mindset, the belief that skills and talent can be developed, has been shown to positively change the way individuals internalize and filter information from their environment. If you don’t have a growth mindset you can develop it just as many successful businesses are increasingly working to hire in and develop this in their workforce. Encouraging employees to develop and maintain a growth mindset helps boost change readiness by increasing their inclination to remain motivated and determined in the face of change. Growth mindset positively changes the way individuals internalize and filter information. ?

How can we build resilience across our organization to have a competitive advantage? Faced by change, we tend to gravitate in what is called negative bias. Challenge this habit. Focus on the learning outcome of each situation. Highly resilient people have clear motivation drivers and a clear sense of meaning, that allows one to stay on course.

I recently attended a high school graduation. Two of the student speakers talked about their pride in remaining agile through all the changes brought about by several years of quarantine from the Covid pandemic. As the amount of change increases constantly, are we, as a society, becoming more and more agile and change ready? To thrive in this constantly changing world, I think we must. We must get comfortable being uncomfortable to handle every situation in life.

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude”?-Oprah Winfrey