Change is inevitable, especially at work, and there are strategies that can help companies and individuals manage through change in the most straightforward ways. It’s understood that change is constant and if think about a leader that you follow or respect, you will find some quote from them on change.
Jack Welch of GE said, “change before you have to” and John Lilly said, “our only security is our ability to change.” Many agree that when change happens in our workplace, people react with resistance and frustration. What’s fascinating, however, is that as a society we constantly seek out change in our personal lives.
What do I mean by that?
The iPhone is the top-selling smartphone and Apple changes their operating system frequently, resulting in new features and settings. In other words – change. Everyone that has an iPhone knows that every time they upgrade to the newest model, they’ll have to learn new features and work through some changes and yet, they seek out the newest model and bring that change on themselves. Apple shipped 231.8 million iPhones in 2023 which is an incredible number of people who purposefully brought significant change on themselves considering people use their phone 4-5 hours a day on average. This pattern repeats in our personal lives continuously: upgrading TVs, appliances, cars, buying new houses, new computers, trying new recipes, even watching a new show and having to learn new characters and plotlines.
What can we learn from our ability to adapt to change in our personal lives and how can we apply it when change happens at work? First, acknowledge the fear that comes with change at work – many think they won’t be able to adapt, that a weakness will be illuminated, or they may lose something such as status, responsibility, , time, or reputation. Change management, a purposeful and systematic way of addressing change in an organization, is exceptionally important for companies who are creating change regularly.
Critical lessons to apply that we learn from change in our personal lives include:
- Acknowledge the change and discomfort it brings; be as transparent as possible and give people time to prepare.
- Involve people in the change strategy and planning to help them shift from something happening ‘to them’ to something they helped create.
- Let people get familiar with the before and after so they can ‘see’ themselves in the successful transition to after – and feel in control.
- Provide training and support that mirrors how people learn new things in their personal lives: short how-to videos, brief ‘getting started’ guides, easy-to-find reference material, a phone number to call, community to leverage and the ability to learn by trying and doing.
“Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better”. ~ Sydney J. Harris
