Reading time: 78 seconds
I’m wondering if “change” shouldn’t have been a four-letter word.
It’s easy to preach change but it can be difficult to live with.
So many articles and blogs and quotes about change all suggest that change is a good thing.
And it can be when it’s our choice.
Big, unexpected changes – like losing your job, a sudden illness, or market crash – are unsettling to say the least.
It’s part of being human to like familiarity and routine and to resist change.
Actually, once you establish a way of doing things, your brain creates a pathway. I think the process must coincide with the “The Law of Least Effort” because once that pathway is created, you operate on auto-pilot. And….the more you follow that pathway the more deeply engrained it gets! (Hence the phrase, “We’re creatures of habit”. )
It takes not only awareness, but considerable effort to do things differently.
Change means consciously stopping yourself at the beginning of a worn path and choosing to brave a new one.
And it’s not that you don’t like the concept of growth by change, right? But the act of change itself can put you off balance.
When change is imposed it’s definitely more difficult than if you had made the decision yourself.
One of our providers recently changed our customer service rep – again. They announced the change in a general media release. (I missed it).
While I know the change was made in line with their corporate growth plan, they failed to recognize the initial impact that change would have on us, their customer.
Having built a relationship with a CSR who understood our business needs and was like a partner, it was as a disruption to our business when a new person simply showed up.
Aha, “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” Peter Senge
There are times when positive change presents itself to you and creates such energy and enthusiasm.
Change isn’t an island, though. Everyone around you feels the repercussions of that change; it means they need to change as well.
While you’re not responsible for the peripheral effect of what that change may bring to others, there are ways to help pave that new path so that both the changer and the changee (I think I invented a new word) benefit.
You already know that making friends with change opens the door to infinite possibilities.
You also know that being part of the change process is empowering.
Rally allies during a change and create positive outcomes together.