Change.  Yes, yes, it’s a constant. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept, particularly given it’s not change itself that causes us angst, it’s the uncertainty associated with change.

 

  • What might this future state look like for me?
  • How do I know if I can manage in the new state?
  • What’s in this edition:
  • How might it change my current state?
  • What might I need to do differently?

All of this creates anxiety and chews up some of our mental bandwidth.

According to Prosci, global change researchers and educators, at the first mention of change in a workplace productivity declines.  The reason?  People are working through the questions above, and a whole lot more.

There’s an emotional and an intellectual response – of course the emotional response is usually much more powerful – and people need space to work through this. Of course we don’t tend to allocate space to change do we?

It’s because BAU continues and we need to keep going, but, it is important to acknowledge the productivity dip that ensues, and you can also set your watch by these fun facts:

  1. The more disruptive the change – the bigger the dip.
  2. The more uncertain and ambiguous and drawn out the change – the bigger the dip, the higher the anxiety and an increased flight risk (people leave)
  3. The rumour mill will have dished out a much juicier and creative version of reality than any change reality – so best get information out sooner rather than later to nip that in the bud.

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know I do a lot of work in this space and have formal qualifications in change management as well as lengthy experience leading successful change initiatives. 

It’s something I’m passionate about – both helping people design, implement and manage change and helping organisations transform culture and safety using best practice change methodology.

There are so many of you that are in the grip of major change and struggling.  So, this blog is solely designed to give you some tips to manage through the uncertainty.

  • Tips for leaders to understand the information they need, and that they should share with their teams to reduce change anxiety.
  • Tips for you, to coach yourself and others through the powerful emotions that arise during change.  
  • Tips on how to communicate during change – basic principles that should be adopted for any change.
  • My biggest tip though will be a strategic one, that being to rationalise the changes in play at any one time – and I’ll share a pretty compelling WHY on that, and a template to help you.
Change is change. It can be exhilarating and terrifying and normal and uncomfortable and meaty and messy and ugly and beautiful.  Change is change. Give yourself time and space to manage through it.

Reducing Change Anxiety – The information leaders need to know and share.


Considering the angst during change is generally associated with the unknown, the uncertainty, there’s some key information leaders can share that help reduce that angst.

This is the minimum you should understand before seeking to communicate a change.  And if you’re being asked to pass on a change message (you might like my blog (Middle Managers – The Salami in the Change Sandwich) these are the questions you’d want to get the answers to before selling the message on.
 

  • What is the business reason for this change/s?
  • What happens if we do change?
  • What happens if we don’t change?
  • What are the opportunities for us in this change?
  • What are the risks of not changing?
  • Why is this change important, at this time?
  • Why now?
  • When will we be operating in the future state?
  • Who is leading the change?
  • Who do we speak to if we have any questions or concerns regarding the change itself, or the process?
  • What do we know about this change?
  • What don’t we know?
  • When do we think we will know what we don’t know?
Being prepared with these answers will help you successfully and confidently communicate about the change and reduce some of the angst.

Coaching Yourself & Others Through Change Emotions

“During change people go from 0-Me in 60 seconds”

This quote I use was one of the key takeaways for a participant in my change fundamentals workshop recently.  

It’s inevitable given human beings are geared for threat detection that at the first mention of change our automatic response is associated with:  “how might this hurt me?” 

As a result of a perceived threat this sparky little thing in our brain called the amygdala goes on a rampage fuelling our body with adrenaline and cortisol and putting us into fight or flight mode.  Yep, good fun change, isn’t it?!

This is rarely while you’ll see people on the receiving end of change walk up and embrace you, smile and say, “this change sounds just wonderful, bring me more!” 

Knowing this information is important.  It helps you prepare for that inevitable spark of defensiveness and emotion and keep your own emotions in check to be able to coach people through this.

Time is a helpful tool here.  Whilst the amygdala hijack process is momentary, people can stay stuck in the negative for much longer.

There’s a lot of reasons why, for now though let’s look at some simple strategies you can deploy to help coach yourself, and others through these change emotions:

1) Insert a pause.  Between the message you receive about change and before you react, pause.  Brene Brown writes this as S (   )  R.  The “S” represents the stimuli, the event.  The brackets the pause, before enabling us to “R” respond.  Respond versus React is key here.  When we give ourselves this pause we are letting our amygdala cool its jets and tapping back into the executive functioning and reasoning part of our brain so we can more objectively respond.  Pause is golden.  Practice it before barking back your heightened emotional reaction.  

2) Ask yourself and those around you the following questions, getting curious about the emotional response to change:

– What, specifically, is it about this / these change/s that concerns you?
– Can you remember a time you were anxious about a change and it turned out to be a good thing?
– What are the opportunities for us / the organisation / those we serve in this change?
– What information would you like / need to feel more accepting of this change?

There’s still a lot of work to do in getting yourself to this point, but often pondering these questions in your head helps you work through some blockages. Give it a try right now.  

Ruthlessly and Strategically Rationalise Your Change Initiatives

Change needs space – mental and diary space. So unless you’re prepared to kill off a fair % of your BAU to enable people to focus on multiple changes you need to get very strategic and ruthless about the change balls you’re asking people to juggle.

I say this with absolute understanding of the often multiple change imperatives, yet I know that at times the “nice to have’s” get prioritised when people are struggling to get across the “absolute must have’s”.  

With the fact that poorly managed change is a psychosocial hazard in your mind consider whether all of your change initiatives – externally and internally generated – are really, truly, mission critical?  Right now?  At this exact time?

If you say yes, are there things you can park to enable space to appropriately adapt and implement these changes?  Or are you prepared to run the risk of change saturation and therefore change fatigue in your people?  Not a great idea by the way – hard to get them back! 

According to our friends at Prosci, ‘change saturation occurs when the number of changes you’re implementing exceeds the capacity of individuals in your organization to effectively adopt and use those changes.’

You can read more about this in my blog Avoiding Change Fatigue at the end of which you can download my project rationalisation register.  

You may also find this blog useful: Enough Already

Ask the hard questions and be prepared to kill of some darlings to ensure you have space to transition from the current state to the future state.  You can’t do that in the cracks. Get intentional about creating the space.

Want More Tips? How About A Handbook?


There’s a plethora of useful tips, tools and templates that I share with my change clients, and you can access some of these in my Cracking the Change Code e-Book.

This e-book takes you from A to Z on the basics of change and introduces you to proven frameworks to support individuals and organisations to successfully transition from the current state to the future state.

It provides templates to ensure you capture the information you need to understand and communicate your change effectively, and even outlines a communications framework. Plus much more!

You can purchase this e-book from the Books section of my website for $19.  Click here for more information.

Don’t hesitate to sing out if you need support implementing your changes or upskilling your leaders.  Reach out to Alexandra via alexandra@tanyaheaneyvoogt.com to find out how we can help. 

Tanya Heaney-Voogt

Director & Principal Consultant
MBA, ICFACC, MAHRI, Dip Mgt, Dip Coaching, Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner
E: tanya@tanyaheaneyvoogt.com

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