Understanding Why Change is Difficult

As the seasons shift, I found myself thinking about how we manage change within teams and businesses. What stood out to me first is that change is challenging, no matter how you look at it.

Senior management will decide on and drive changes from a top-down strategic perspective. From this angle, change appears relatively simple and even exciting when considering the potential results. However, workers may not be quite enthused about changes to their team, tools, or workflow.

In this respect, management will often have a blind spot—while they may be fantastic at managing change, their skills may not extend to the people management aspect of the equation.

With this in mind, I’d like to explore the individual parts of the machine that is change in the workplace.

Threatening the Status Quo:

Core to this is the loss of control. Changes made from the top down are often task-driven and goal-oriented, with the human element usually left out of discussions. This lack of control often leads to changes - no matter how small - being perceived as “too much, too fast”.

An easy way to address concerns is to explain the “Why?” Not just the exacting details, but the purpose of the changes. What is changing? Why are these changes necessary and what outcomes can be expected?

The Emotional Response:

When faced with change, the gut response is an emotional one, especially when someone is personally invested in something. Employees will often see and understand things differently to upper management and may see change as unnecessary or even harmful to their work.

Remember that this difference in perspective isn’t just an emotional one, because it is informed by their experience and intimate knowledge of their work. There is room in the workplace for this emotional response. Maintaining an open dialogue will often calm matters and allow for employees to voice their concerns.

Giving Input:

The larger the organisation, the more the individual team member lacks control and input. Upper management crafts strategies and implements changes, but the direct impacts of those changes effectively output at a different level of the company.

This is already a one-sided affair, but in larger businesses, this problem is further exasperated by a lack of communication between the different levels of the business. Do employees have the opportunity to give input on changes? Are there any feedback mechanisms?

The great thing about implementing changes is that the environment is already in flux. If something isn’t working as intended or if workers notice any problems, solutions can quickly be crafted and implemented as and when needed – before anything is finalised.

Who is in Control?:

In larger companies where individual team members have less say, many workers will feel like they don’t have much control over changes. Workers will often be more or less inclined to give constructive feedback depending on who is in charge of making decisions and implementing changes.

Whoever it is, what is their track record like? Have they led the implementation of major strategic changes in the past? Are they known for listening to feedback and taking it onboard? Are they even open to communication at all?

90% of change management is about control – not always direct control, but the feeling of control. Change is always going to be difficult, but through open communication, transparency, and a little bit of quick thinking, it can be made much easier than it otherwise might be.

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