Change of Heart.
Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.
In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he's also writen monthly columns for CIO Magazine and Computerworld Canada.
His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
If you'd like permission to reprint any of Peter's articles, please contact him directly.
You can contact him at
pdejager@technobility.com
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I’d asked some readers to take the time to answer a handful of simple questions for two specific reasons. The first is so that you have your own observations on Change to examine as we embark on a little exploration of the human psyche, and the second more important reason, is so that we can see for ourselves, that what we know to be true differs greatly from what is accepted as “common knowledge” regarding how we respond to Change.
Here’s the first lesson from the questions which you might find useful. There is very little difference in the answers from one person to the next. It doesn’t matter if the person is a senior executive, a mid-level manager, a new hire, student or someone between jobs - the answers are almost identical in meaning, if not in the actual words. This is not a coincidence, it’s just an important reality based observation regarding this thing we call “Change”.
The truth is, we all resist the same types of Change, and embrace a totally different category of Change. Our challenge is, and it’s not a trivial one, is to understand how exactly we distinguish one category of Change from another. For example, the “sizes” of the Changes we face have little if anything to do with our decision to either embrace or resist them.
Here are the responses from about 50 people when asked, “What changes have you embraced in your
life?
Marriage (32) New Technology (5)
Moving house (32) Death of a family Member (3)
Children (21) Job Loss (3)
New Job (19) Travel (3)
Career Change (18) Coping with death of Family member (3)
Gaining an education (13) New Boss (3)
New Relationship (12) New Car (3)
Weight Loss (9) Empty Nest (2)
Leaving Home (7) Illness of a Family Member (2)
Changing perspective (6) Learning New ideas (2)
Divorce (6) Growing up (1)
One question you might have is “what exactly do people mean when they use the word ‘embraced’?” Good question. I would have gotten a different set of responses if I’d used the phrase “willingly embraced”. In using the word by itself I expected to get people to include events such as death of a family member, which eventually we all embrace merely because we have no choice.
By juxtaposing “embrace” with “resist” I wanted to then receive back items which people have never really accepted, that they still resist. Based upon some offline conversations, I believe the questions generated the right responses, even with the deliberate, possibly unavoidable ambiguity.
Here are the responses to the next question, “What changes have you resisted in your life?”
Changing Personal Habits (20) Organizational change (5)
Moving House (19) Children (4)
Death of a family member (10) Ill Health (4)
Losing Weight (9) Loss of Job (3)
Gaining an Education (9) Parent's Divorce (3)
New Job (9) Change in financial status (2)
New Technology (8) Taking large financial risk (2)
Divorce (8) Job Change (2)
Career Change (7) Illness of a Family Member (2)
New Boss (6) Death of a friend (2)
Aging (5) Failure (2)
There is a lot of overlap between these two groups. At first glance it would appear that there is no pattern, but we also can’t avoid noticing that there is a significant difference between the two groups. “Marriage” is the predominant (occurring 32 times) Change amongst those Changes which we embrace, and “Changing personal habits” features most amongst the Changes we resist. Yet, surely “Marriage” is a much larger, more significant Change than say, getting up on time, or quitting smoking?
How do the items of the first list differ from those on the second? If we can figure out that secret, then perhaps we’ll know more about Change? And if we know more about it, then perhaps we’ll be able to manage it, and cope with it better?
Here’s the next question and some of the more common responses, “In your own words, what distinguishes these two lists from each other?”
Acceptance and grace over what I can control and what I cannot.
Changes I embraced were things I wanted to do. Things I resist are things I had to do or others pressure me to do. How much choice I have is the key.
Changes I embraced either brought joy, made me feel better or eased pain. Changes I resisted involved risk, discomfort or fear of the unknown.
Changes I've embraced are those that I have initiated for one reason or another - I mange them to a great degree and they are in my control. Those I resisted, for the most part are those changes that some one else made the decisions and drove the change.
Changes that I've embraced in my life are those that I feel I have more control over, and are those that I have motivation to complete to make my life more balanced. Changes I resist are usually those that I fear will have a backlash on me.
Either I initiated the change in the first place, or I found something to like about a change that I didn't initiate.
First list includes changes that I made (for the most part because I wanted to) the second were because I had to or someone else wanted me to do it.
For the most part the embraced changes were changes that I could control or changes that I pursued.
I embrace change in which I am not a passive participant and resist that in which I am. (Didn't realize that's the difference until now.)
I have embraced change when it's been my choice, and I've resisted it when it has been imposed from above (or outside) and I haven't bought into the need for it.
I think I could see very clearly all the positive benefits that I would gain from the things I embraced (although I probably wasn't always right). The things I resisted were largely things that happened outside of my control or had unknown consequences or would involve some kind of confrontation on my part.
I think it's all about choice; whether you get to decide about the change or it's forced upon you.
If I wanted and initiated the change or how it came about, was I part of the decision making process or was it forced on me?
I'm more comfortable being the change agent for others than changing myself.
It's not about risk because both lists contain items that are very risky. I think it's about what I want at the time and what I believe in. The resistance comes from what other people want and I resisted the change because it was not what I wanted.
Many of the changes in list 1 were not ones I had significant control of - or at least the outcomes were pretty much out of my direct control; therefore, the options were limited: embrace the change, deal with it, find the positive from it or be miserable and depressed.
The same item can be on both lists -- it depends on who is involved!
While I admit to trimming down the number of responses shown, and therefore there was a filtering process, the above responses are indicative of the types of answers received from the 50 folks who took part in this mini-study.
I don’t think it is possible to read these responses without formulating the decision process at the heart of our decision whether to embrace or resist a Change.
The
more we control a Change,
the more likely we are to embrace it.
Given how it was “discovered”, it is difficult to consider this observation “deep wisdom”, but many of the respondents commented that they’d never made this connection before, and yet it is obviously true and gave them great insight into how they deal with Change.
The next question, “In more detail now, why did you choose to embrace the changes in the first list?” yielded a similar treasure trove of
commentary.
Because they were all things that I knew I wanted
Brought new wonderful things to my life; gave me more satisfaction, joy or peace.
Changes in the first were either to achieve a core value (i.e. marriage and family) or to enhance them.
Conscious desire to make change, despite difficulties of implementation.
Desire for change - challenge, new learning, perception of a better place/better environment, more satisfaction
Each of the items in the first list enhanced my life, my view of who I am, and what I believe in.
I "needed" to - necessity played a role in some of the changes in the first list. Or timing perhaps - that it was simply "the right time" to make the changes.
I/We spend plenty of time discussing, understanding, dare I say rationalizing these changes/decisions. These changes were part of life moving forward in the normal progression.
Seems like everything in that first list is about moving through life, improving as you go, making the best out of every situation that arises, and choosing to enjoy it.
The changes I embraced enhanced my life by improving relationships, making me feel/look better, satisfied my need to have challenges and push myself beyond my comfort zone, and generally broaden my horizons.
They make me happy. They add to my personal growth. To become healthier, mentally and physically.
Those were changes in which I felt a level of control, if not in the general change itself, of how I could shape my response and determine my direction to at least some extent.
Again, these were selected from a longer list, and therefore these is some filtering going on, that said these are representative of the spirit of the responses.
There is an underlying pattern here; it’s not that difficult to pick out.
The more a Change
protects or improves what we value
the more likely we are to embrace it.
And the corresponding question, “In more detail now, why did you choose to resist the changes in the first list?” gave us the following.
After doing the pros and cons, conscious decision that this was not the best outcome for me and/or my family.
Again, I tried to keep my core values in tact. Make time for the family, keep the family
Fear. Plain and simple.
I do not like doing things that I am "expected" to do because I don't like being like other people.
I resisted them because I believed there to be too much risk of failure - either financial, personal embarrassment, or letting people down.
I looked at the physical, financial, social, and/or spiritual implications of the change and made a decision based on the answers to that. I also used my closest support system to talk about the changes and to bounce ideas off of.
It was difficult to see myself in each new role and situation at the outset.
Most of them deal with mandates from others/behavior of others that I can't control.
My drive to work can stay the same every day - I changed jobs, take on challenges, but I need the comfort of having an unstressful drive to work in order to handle the bigger challenge.
The second list is about changing patterns of behavior that may not be productive
These changes take me out of my "comfort zone" - and therefore made me feel ill at ease. In some cases they brought about challenges that I didn't feel I could meet and insecurities.
They caused me pain. I didn't want to change the way I related to the world.
They didn't make sense to me. I couldn't rationalize why they needed to occur. The other major reason for resisting these changes is that I knew from actual experience that the changes would negatively impact me, my spouse, or our relationship.
There are several nuggets we can extract from this list, but we’ll keep it as simple as possible to start with and pick out only two.
(1)
The more a Change
Threatens our status Quo
the more likely we are to resist it.
(2)
We do not arbitrarily resist Change
There is a rational
thought process involved
The answers to these questions, even though they are our personal responses, are the only important factors contributing to why we change, when contemplating Change of any type, of any importance, of any size, in any organization.
Everything about Change starts and ends with how we as individuals respond to it. Without people there is no such thing as “resistance to change.”
One of the great myths of Change is the notion that something called “Organizational Change” exists. Organizations are an illusion of association. There are no “organizations”, there are only collections of individual people who have agreed, for a brief time, to work together.
As members of this group who have elected to work together, our individual responses to Change, collectively create the illusion of Organizational Change. Understand the individual responses to Change and we understand Organizational Change.
We all already know the answers to the questions posed in this mini survey.
If we can now make a huge leap of faith and accept that the answers we arrived at, are the same for everyone else on this planet with only a few, incredibly rare exceptions, then Change loses most of it’s mystery and becomes almost but not quite, mundane.
If we can then apply what we've learned using the tried and true “Do unto others…” philosophy, then we literally don't need to delve any further into “Change Management”. We already know everything we need to know about Managing Change.
Of course… making that huge leap from personal questions and answers, to Corporate Change, is what trips most people up and what starts the 'discussion.'
Yours truly
Peter de Jager
p.s. There were other questions on the mini-survey, I’ll leave their analysis for another article.
(c) 2005, Peter de Jager – Guess what? Peter has a passionate, almost
obsessive, fascination with this thing called Change. Especially the
change brought about by technology. If you’d like to inject some of his passion
and focus to your organization’s change management process… then contact him at
Pdejager@technobility.com
Here’s what a recent client had to say about his work;
Peter de Jager's presentation on the process of Change Management at our Chapter meeting was enlightening, entertaining and thought provoking. Peter takes the audience on a fascinating tour of managing change in the workplace. His hilarious account of every day personal experiences made us all reflect on our own past experiences, both good and bad. Peter left us all with an understanding of why we resist change and how we can more effectively implement and communicate change to minimize uncertainty. I look forward to having Peter back for another presentation to the Mid-Missouri PMI Chapter.
Ron Parker,
PMP, President,
Mid-Missouri Chapter, PMI.
May 2005
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