Managing Change IS Leadership
Think for a minute about a time in your life or your work when you experienced a significant change. As you uncover the memory, remember how you were feeling about the change. What worried you? What made you feel uncertain? What exhilarated you? What were you looking forward to as an outcome or result? Perhaps you are thinking about a time when you started a new job, took on a challenging project, introduced a new accounting system, went back to school, worked with a coach to change your behavior or implemented a new leadership team or expanded one. Now think about the things that supported you in managing the change. Who and what helped you make the transition and adapt to your new situation? Perhaps your list includes research, a plan, colleagues, friends, a coach, a positive mindset, an adventurous spirit, and patience, lots of patience!
Change is the moment when things are no longer the same. For example, change happened for me on Memorial Day in 2016 when we put our home on the market, and it sold in five days. The transition is our ability to accept the change with a welcoming heart and adapt to it positively and healthily. I like to think of it in stages such as the upheaval before the movers arrive, the storm as the movers disassemble your home and pack your work contents on their truck, and refreshing clarity when you begin to settle into your new home and develop new routines. In his seminal work on transitions in life and work, William Bridges refers to the transition experience as being in the neutral zone.[1] When we’re in that space, it can feel as though the ground is unstable, making next steps tentative. It can feel as though choices are limited, narrowing the field of vision around options and opportunities. It can feel as if there is no end or new new normal in sight.
The truth is the ground becomes stable again with small steps one at a time. Once the change happens, there are seemingly a million moving parts in the transition. It is a great time to keep a list, especially in a format you can keep adding to and adjusting as you go. Make a little time each day to form a game plan and work it. The action of adding and crossing things off your list creates a sense of accomplishment and decreases feelings of uncertainty. It restores a sense of internal control.
The truth is there is always another way and another opportunity. It s a great time to go exploring, ask a lot of questions, listen to others’ experiences, and try out different things. For example, if you are setting up a new office for the first time in several years, start with a blank sheet. What you come to realize is that the choices for desks, chairs, cabinets, and equipment are seemingly infinite. Comparison shopping with a healthy amount of skepticism turns out to be a best friend along with frank conversations with vendors. The ones who want your business will work hard with you. And there is the added benefit of creating new relationships along the way.
The truth is difficult transitions eventually find their way to a steady state where everything that was in flux settles. New systems, procedures, processes and practices begin to take shape in repeatable routines, and all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Sometimes transitions happen in several phases with different unknowable time frames. It is a great time to create short routines that restore a sense of stability and control. As new pieces of the puzzle fall into place, you can adjust short-term methods into more permanent ones. An important step here is to acknowledge and communicate what is temporary and when it shifts to permanent.
Change is a core dimension of leadership. Here is a reminder of seven mindsets or lenses every leader can choose to bring your best self to managing change. We’ve adapted these lenses from the Energy Leadership framework developed by Bruce Schneider[2] using our recent move in the example. A leader’s default mindset - where the leader goes first in their thoughts - influences how confidently and quickly they can effectively navigate the upheaval of change and lead from a positive, productive place.
It’s my fault I didn’t plan for a big enough moving van. It is a hopeless disaster.
It was the moving company’s fault for not putting all the big furniture pieces on the truck first. They ruined this for us with more expense. If we supervised the movers more, this wouldn’t have happened.
Breathe. We can cope. Let’s consider our options. We can come up with a good alternative.
I want the rest of the move to be successful. We’ve managed hundreds of challenging projects. What did I do in the past to be successful in a pinch that can help us now?
I’ll share the situation with someone who recently moved and has another perspective. I’m sure together we can come up with a good approach.[3]
I’m trusting my instinct and what I learn I can pass along for the benefit of others.
I love being a leader. It is the way change is supposed to happen!
Options 3 through 7 open perspectives and connect leaders to various pathways of opportunity. Options 5 and 6, especially as the default, offer leaders a way to manage change with an open, courageous heart. Option 5 makes a connection to trusting conversation and collaboration, to realizing as a leader that you never have to embrace challenge alone. Option 6 connects to the leader’s intuition and new experiences that benefit them and ultimately others as well. Option 7 affirms that the choices we make and the experiences we have, no matter what, is what it means to live a full life and lead boldly.
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
–Dan Millman
[1] Bridges, W. (2009) Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change (3rd Ed.). Philadelphia, PA: De Capo Press.
[2] Schneider, B.D. (2008) Energy Leadership: Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from the Core. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Learn more at www.ipeccoaching.com.
[3] It turns out that AMTRACK Express Shipping is an amazing affordable solution for big packages. https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/baggage-policy/amtrak-express-shipping.html