The critical nature of change in your life

The critical nature of change in your life

Or how I learned to love the leap of faith…

I was reading an interesting post in Facebook last week and I loved it because it supported my thoughts on the nature of change.  This person asked a question.  They asked whether they should change jobs.  The new job would pay less and be farther to drive, but the people at the old job were mean and it was awful.

That’s how the question was posed. Two choices; stay at the old job or move to the new job.  People chimed in with their opinions.  Some said tough it out and bank the pay.  Better the devil you know – and all that.  Others said make the move to a happier place. “Be true to yourself”

I was a wise guy and said ‘consider the third way’.

Today I want to walk you through three things; the nature of change, how change is really just transition between states in your life balance and the third way.

Some people hate change.  Some people love change.  It depends on your mindset and how you perceive risk.  I have been involved in a lot of change both personally and professionally.  I’d like to say it was all planned and optimistic, but most of it was unplanned and opportunistic.

Even so, I like to think there are subtler forces at work.  I think, like I said in a previous post, that we can look at a life of experience and see patterns.  From these patterns we can seek to understand.

What is the nature of change?  Change follows a natural course, a repeating pattern that once you understand you can use to your advantage by putting your energy into the right places.

In my career I have been a consultant.  I would go into organizations around the world and be responsible for introducing new systems and processes.  I know firsthand what makes for a successful implementation of change and what makes for a failure to change.

Organizations make the decision to introduce new systems and processes to create positive change.  Typically this positive change is intended to produce something good, like less cost or more revenue or avoiding some impending negative event.  What’s going on here is that they are purposely injecting a change into a stable system in an effort to get to a different and better future state.  Sound familiar?

What I saw in these implementations of change was the following, standard, common, repeating phases.

First was the honeymoon phase where everyone was excited and positive.  Nothing much had actually changed yet and everyone stayed wide-eyed and hopeful, drinking the Kool-Aid about how great the new state of things was going to be.  Of course there would be fence sitters and Luddites pretending to go along and looking for opportunities, signs of failure that they could pounce on and say ‘I told you it wouldn’t work!’

Second would be the point where you actually throw the switch on the new system or process and everything starts going to hell.  People aren’t familiar with it and the learning curve takes a bit to catch up.  The fence-sitters start warming up their ‘I told you sos’.  The sponsors get called into uncomfortable meetings.  I get emergency phone calls and executives make frowny faces.  I call this the trough.

Third is the recovery and growth phase as people start to come up the learning curve, internalize the new systems and all the indicators start pointing up, up and away.  There is much rejoicing.  I get a bonus and a plane ticket to the next client conflagration.

Fourth, and finally, is the new state.  Eventually the new process is totally internalized by the organization; it stabilizes and becomes the new normal.  Everyone forgets about the pain and management starts looking for its next dose of positive change to start the process over again.

What is the take away for us here?  Why do we care?  Because all the change in your life is like this.  You will go through these 4 phases.  Whether the change is something you proactively undertake or something forced upon you by circumstance.

When you are in the trough of despair (that’s what the analysts call it) you need to understand what’s happening and what you can do about it.  The actions that you take and the attitude that you have will directly impact three important aspects of that change curve.

1. The depth of the trough
2. The length of the trough
3. And the height of the new stabilization level

In business and in life this all equates to value and the time it takes to get it.

If you want the trough to be small and brief, if you want the new state to encapsulate the most potential fullness, then you have to understand and actively manage the change process.

What are attributes of teams (and people) who successfully manage change?

1. You need to be committed and own the change.  You have to own the results.  It isn’t someone else’s project it is your life and your change.  You need to own it.
2. You need to understand that there will be a trough.  Things will get worse before they get better.  Change is hard.  The amount of commitment, energy and just plain honest hard work that you apply during the trough will shorten it.
3. Keep your eye on the prize.  Keep reminding yourself of the future state.  You need to know that it will get better.  There is hope, there is light at the end of the tunnel. When you are in the weeds and turmoil of the trough you can lose sight of the goal.  Keep your eyes on the prize.
4. Finally – Celebrate success.  When you have battled free of the trough and are making your way to that better state take time to rejoice.

That is the nature of change.

But aren’t we always changing?  There are some change events that stand out in your life like taking a new job but really life is one long spectrum of change.  When you get to that new job that you wanted you soon realize that it’s still just a job.  Like one of the Ramones said, “being a Rock ‘n Roll singer is a pretty good job, but it’s still a job.”

Change is a transition between states.  I find in my life that after a transition and work my way through the trough that I’m soon unsettled again, looking for the next thing, hankering for some kind of new change.  Some people call this phase ‘thrashing’.  Thrashing is that state of uneasiness between transitions that allows you to build up enough energy to move through the next transition the next change.

Thrashing is perfectly ok.  No one is 100% happy with everything.  You only stop changing in this life when your body dies.

Step back and understand that it’s ok to change, it’s ok to not change and it’s ok to thrash between changes – these are natural things.

I will tell you my own experience with change.  I have found that my greatest career and personal growth has come with change.  I will tell you that the bigger the perceived risk, the more valuable the change.  The bigger the challenge – the larger the personal growth – even if you fall short of the goal.

I have on more than one occasion taken pay cuts to move into roles where I thought there was more opportunity.  I have started companies.  In these cases the trough was a time of uncertainty, but a time of high personal growth.  I put myself in these high change states to force myself to grow and work and succeed.

I discovered that not being afraid of change, not being afraid of high risk situations, being able to operate and focus in high risk, high noise environments is an incredible asset to possess.  It allows you to step into the fray with a self confidence, a knowledge that no matter what, I bring my self and my immutable competencies to the game.

Being a skilled player at the change game, understanding the change curve and the transitional nature of change will give you an advantage and lead you to better results and deeper learning.

And that’s pretty cool.

What’s the Third way?  The third way is a bit of a Buddhist concept that I’m going to misrepresent here.  It comes down to the way you ask the question.  In the opening paragraph I told the story about the person who asked whether they should keep their current job or take a new job.  That is a very constraining way of asking the question.

When you limit the universe of solutions to such a small set you are eliminating an infinite number of other potential solutions or choices.

This person could stay or change or go to culinary school to become a chef, or become a rodeo clown or a bestselling author or an astronaut! What the heck! Why are they phrasing their choice in such a way as to predetermine the solution set?

Choices are never black and white.  They are never either or.  In choice and in change there is always a third way.  Take the time to step back and consider the third way.  Get out of your box.  Make your changes count.