With unrelenting change a fact of the modern business world, HR should be preparing employees to maintain high levels of performance during turbulent times. Stuck in the rut of “we’ve always done it this way” employees need training to develop resilience to change.
Change. It’s such a scary word for many people, and yet we are all born with an innate ability (or a baseline resilience) to deal with and adapt to change. Change is an essential part of life. As children, change is a natural part of growing up. We accept it and we certainly don’t fear it. As we grow older and go through life, we unconsciously develop greater levels of resilience through experience.
It seems strange, then, that the longer we spend in the business world, the more difficult it becomes for us to deal with change. We become stiff over time, concerned that we’re making the right decisions and solving the right problems. We lose flexibility as we gain experience because we’re not sure how to apply our experiences to the changes we find ourselves dealing with.
Employees need to learn how to “consciously” develop resilience to change. Organizations are relying on employees who have the ability to deal with and respond to change. And these same organizations are also recognizing the need to help employees become more effective at managing change in order to reduce stress-related absences and improve employee morale and retention.
As events in the world move more quickly, and the speed at which people must respond increases, it becomes more critical that employees understand process to deal effectively with change.
Effectively absorbing the impact of change has become essential to both personal wellness and organizational success. Employees need to recognize their own responses to change as well as their ability to manage change. When this recognition is lacking, employees demonstrate a variety of dysfunctional behaviours (including resentment, absenteeism, illness, lack of trust and increased conflict with peers). They feel unproductive and demotivated, and it is difficult for them to achieve strategic goals. For many organizations, the solution means offering change management training to help employees learn a structured approach for managing change.
The challenge in providing training to help staff absorb change goes beyond teaching people how to cope, how to manage their stress, or how to adjust to disruptions in the workplace. Organizations need to prepare employees to maintain high levels of performance during turbulent times. Employees need to know how to get back on track when their expectations are disrupted, how to remain physically and emotionally healthy while struggling with the uncertainty that all change brings, and how to learn from each “change event.”
Daryl Conner, a leading expert in the field of change management, has done much of the research in this area. Through his organization, ODR (Organizational Development Resources —Architects for human resilience) in Atlanta, Conner has worked with many employees and executives at Fortune 500 companies. His research has shown that some people are able to deal with change more effectively than others because they are aware of how change affects them, and they have skills to apply in times of turbulence. These people share five key characteristics: they are positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive. Highly resilient people, or “change managers,” have developed these skills and behaviours so that they can demonstrate all of them during change events, thereby remaining stronger and more productive.
Conner has written several books on the topic of change, including Managing at the Speed of Change: Guidelines for Resilience in Turbulent Times. His work focuses on the five characteristics of highly resilient people, and explores how these people, though not unaffected by change, are able to:
•get back on track more quickly after a disruptive change;
•stay highly productive;
•maintain higher levels of physical and emotional health;
•achieve more of their goals; and
•bounce back from the stresses of change even stronger than before.
It’s important to remember that everyone has a baseline resilience when dealing with change, which means that everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, demonstrates an ability to be positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive. Conner’s research shows, however, that only when people can rely on a balance of these characteristics in any situation are they truly “resilient”. Below are some practical “to dos” that all employees can use to develop skills in each of these areas. See the box on page 16 for related reading.
To develop a more positive outlook on life, try:
•keeping a list of daily accomplishments related to change that you’re currently experiencing;
•taking an inventory of your strengths and weaknesses and make a balanced assessment of your overall abilities;
•making a list of the negative factors you associate with an upcoming or current change, then write a positive statement to go with each negative factor. Ask yourself how you can make the negative factors positive; and/or
•celebrating special events.
To become more focused, try:
•making a list of all the ways you can think of to accomplish the changes;
•thinking about the steps you could take to make your change event successful if you only had a week to do it;
•setting specific goals for each phase of the change event, and monitoring your accomplishments; and/or
•being aware of your own blinders. Develop a list of things connected to the change that you want to achieve, preserve, avoid and eliminate — and why. Use the list to help you establish your goals.
To develop the flexible characteristic, try:
•identifying a skill you would like to learn more about and ask someone to teach it to you;
•working word problems, anagrams, crosswords and other puzzles. These exercises will help to develop flexible thinking skills;
•actively listening to others, particularly during times of change. If you are uncertain about what you have heard ask the person to paraphrase the statement or idea so that you are sure that you understand what it means to you; and/or
•learning to suspend judgement about proposed changes.
To become more organized, try:
•making a to-do list for each project. Start by clearly visualizing the end result, and work backwards from there to outline key steps that must be accomplished;
•looking for patterns in what you must accomplish during a change event; and/or
•making a list of your present commitments. Analyse how you spend your time and determine how your current schedule fits into the proposed change. Decide how you might accomplish the change before the change happens.
To develop the proactive characteristic, try:
•developing plans for managing the worst-case scenario that might result from the upcoming change event;
•creating a list of the problems and opportunities surrounding a change. This will help you to assess the risks involved with change and avoid the “wait until it happens” attitude; and/or
•gathering as much information as possible about a change event. Decide which issues you want or need more information about. Spend time shaping, refining and clarifying these issues so that you can be more productive when the change is implemented.
Gradually, employees are recognizing that it’s important to be proactive, and to realize that they can be more successful if they involve themselves in the change that surrounds them. Employees who practice strategies to become more positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive are able to effectively handle change while remaining healthy and productive in both their personal and professional lives. A course designed to help employees absorb change more effectively should provide an opportunity to have fun, a chance to explore the impact of change on themselves and on each other, as well as time to develop strategies that are useful and practical enough to begin applying on a daily basis.
The only constant is change — organizations should be helping employees to prepare for the changes that lie ahead.
Jayne Jackson is the manager, training and development/human resources with the publishing firm Carswell. She may be reached at [email protected].
