Sunset on 2020

5 principles to deal with losses from change

We’ve all heard that ‘people hate change’ - but maybe it’s better to say that people hate losses from change.

As the sun sets on 2020, what have you lost?

Some have lost their job or business, a prized relationship or are experiencing the pain and numbness of being separated from a loved one by death. Maybe you have lost money, your home or even your health?

That said, you may have uncovered and developed opportunities previously over-looked or neglected and are now moving into new, exciting territory.

Perhaps you’ve had a mixture of these experiences.

This article looks at 5 tips on how to allow a ‘sunset’ on the past and why you may want to do that.

In his classic book[1] William Bridges contrasts change ‘events’ with the experience and handling of change by an individual, team or society.

Bridges sees ‘change’ as the swirl of changing physical events and circumstances that happen outside you:  some of this you choose but much of this you can’t control.

He contrasts this with the experience of ‘transition’: the psychological journey that takes place within you as you adapt to, resist, or struggle with, the results and impacts of change.

Bridges notes that ‘transition’ moves more slowly than ‘change’. Yet we must align the two to maximise the benefits from change. Otherwise, we end up merely ‘rearranging the existing furniture’ rather than making landmark progress and experiencing a new situation positively.

“People cannot see…that the new situation will be any better than the current condition. What they do see clearly is the potential for loss” – Ron Heifetz & Marty Linsky

Further to Bridges, Harvard’s Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky advocate the wisdom of marking the end of a life or business phase formally, before moving into new territory.

Heifetz & Linsky share 5 ways to recognise and deal with actual and emotional losses from change [2]. I am making use of these in leaving 2020 behind and facing into 2021.

I thought you may find them useful too:

1.     Formally acknowledge the losses experienced.

Name the losses you and your team have experienced in your personal and business lives. Grieve over them and memorialise each loss, as seems appropriate and as you agree. This is a positive step, not a wallowing in self-pity.

As leaders, we need to realise how important it is to give voice to individual and collective pain. Cultivate this skill as part of marking the ‘ending’ of a phase of your business life, and that of your team involved with you. This leaves you free to move on respectfully, to your next phase, united as a unit. 

2.     Recognise the losses sustained and engineer-in new, valued replacements.

Many leaders puzzle over why some people resist a package of change when - logically – it looks like a no-brainer to embrace it.

Some answers to this seem to lie in loyalty, that is, typically loyalty to the memory of the person/people who originated the practices that are to be replaced by the change.

Such loyalties – conscious or subconscious - are strong and are linked to feelings of familiarity, security, power and authority experienced, and vested in, the practices to be lost through a change. For example, an ‘old’ process may have emotional links to a likable person who introduced it to a team. Now someone new, unproven and not having earned the right to be ‘liked’ is asking that same team to abandon it.

A more severe example occurs for an individual if a change takes away their special expertise as a source of power. This situation calls for creativity to engineer-in new sources of power for that individual which further corporate results and power, not just their personal power.

Finally, it is well to recognise the effect of change on feelings of ‘competence’. By this I mean that a person may not be enjoying the most effective process at work or quality of relationship outside work. However, they may choose to accept a current poor situation.

This may be because they feel a certain level of ‘competence’ and achievement by being able to ‘handle the situation’. Sometimes we can miss out on flags to this situation and simply assume that they resist change because they cannot cope with the disruption of such change.        

3.     Model the behaviour you expect of others.

Heifetz and Linsky share the story of a CEO who stepped down from his post temporarily to work on a key production line that was in crisis. The CEO chose to operate in the exact same spot where several production workers had recently died due to a health & safety failure.

This positive response, and the courage to lead by example, led to a step-change in results, trust, engagement and loyalty to that leader and to their organisation. 

4.     Allow people reasonable time to adapt to losses from change. 

People generally want change to fix known problems: the quicker the better. Not so many people are willing – or patient enough - to make progress on more complex challenges where there is no easy, obvious solution.

Some of the ways we measure results doesn’t help here, e.g. the short ‘performance’ time horizons for evaluating CEOs and the limited range and blunt measures employed. Effective change leadership means disturbing and disrupting people in their habits and practices but at a rate they can deal with.

5.     Fuel desired self-identity and predictability in the new situation. 

Habits give us stability, predictability gives us security, and identity gives us meaning and significance.

As we approach the ‘sunset’ of a phase of personal or professional life, as an individual or as a team, it is useful to consider what identities we have taken and enjoyed, e.g. during 2020 and who and what we will be in 2021. This may be in a new project, a new product, a different geography, or an emerging business stream. 

“Times of transition are strenuous but I love them. They are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We can make our new normal any way we want.” - Kristin Armstrong

These 5 principles are helping me and my team as we move into 2021.

How about you?

What does your 2020 Sunset look like?

What will the new Dawn of 2021 reveal?

David Santineer is a Co-Founder at Proactive by Design. Having led change teams in private, public and third sectors, he specialises in foresight for high stakes decisions and self-starting skills for better results from change. 

[1] Bridges W (2020) Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes (40th Anniversary Edition): De Capo

[2] Heifetz R & Linsky M (2017) Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA