Meeting the challenge of the future

BY

Professor Elaine Estervig Beaubien

Tenured faculty, School of Business

Edgewood College

CEO,

Management Training Seminars

6520 York Heights

Waterloo, WI 53594

www.elainetrain.com

920-478-2811

elainetrain@aol.com

“Change makes us stupider, relatively speaking.” Dilbert.

Think about it.  You just got used to the software installed on your computer last month and someone from the Information Technology department gleefully announces a new version. You know the changes will be slight, but the discomfort with the new version rests with your inability to assimilate the new icons and unfamiliar arrangements. You make mistakes, correct errors and sit in confused contemplation before taking the next step in attaching a file to what you hope is the correct e-mail protocol.

Nothing stays the same.  Look around you, assess your environment, evaluate your relationships, take inventory of your resources, appraise your skills and you will have to acknowledge the reality of change.  Look at some old home movies, read a few newspapers from the last decade, talk to people about their personal and professional lives and the change is dramatic. Did we really wear bell bottoms, use white-out and say “groovy?”

The globe is spinning faster and faster. There is no doubt the pace of change has accelerated. Our ancestors did not move geographically as often or as far; professions remained stable; the social order dictated behavior and relationships and innovation was a slow, gradual process.  People could leisurely adjust to the occasional change in their lives.  Today, everything from technology to relationships is changing by the minute.  Nothing remains static.  Obsolescence is being faced by new college graduates.  Being well trained at one moment in time does not guarantee competence in the next moment.  It is an exciting, stressful time and it looks like the pace is not going to slow down.

“When the rate of change outside an organization is greater than the rate of change inside, the end is near.”  Jack Welch, General Electric CEO.

Organizations exist in a dynamic open system. An ever changing environment impacts on the organization and each variation in the organization will affect its constituencies.  All variables in the system are in a state of constant flux and if an organization does not adapt, it will become obsolete.  Trend analysis, research and development, product/service improvement, personnel planning and fiscal oversight are essential for survival and growth.

“Life is change . . . Growth is optional . . . Choose wisely . . .” Karen Kaiser Clark

Change is what people fear most . . . or is it? Change means there is a need to modify or alter one’s behavior.  Both organizations and the people in them must develop a high tolerance for it. Many of you can remember a time without remote controls, drive-in windows, ATMs, CNN, .com’s and answering machines.  Today, it would be difficult to think of a world without these conveniences.  These are all changes we have accepted, assimilated and, most would say, enthusiastically embraced.  It is not the changes so much as the discomfort with the adjustments and disquiet with the alterations necessary to adapt to the change that make us resistant.  Once the changes have been adopted and absorbed, they become familiar and routine.  People need to be reminded of this.

Change is an inevitable part of personal and organizational life.  It is not so much change that people resist as the possible result of that change. Do not sabotage the success of a change by assuming people will resist it.  If you can show them that the outcomes will be favorable or will not cause harm, there should be a way to get people to embrace it, endorse it, welcome it or, at least, not resist it.

People fear change less than the prospect of being changed. Potential for loss, insecurity with new expectations, apprehension over the unknown, more work or higher expectations, uncertainty, ambiguity, and fear of failure/success are some of the possible byproducts of change.  These are the things that people resist. 

Organizational leadership must reassure people through open communication, accessibility and frequent feedback.  Each of these concerns is legitimate and should be taken seriously. Address them candidly and directly. By removing the resistance, you increase the probability of a successful transition. 

Accompany change with training opportunities.  Allow adequate time for adjustments.  Solicit input from those people who will be impacted by the change.  Make your expectations clear and explicit. Reward creativity. Encourage innovation.  Most importantly, model the kind of behavior you expect in others.  Find ways to make change happen. 

“When you are through changing, you are through.” Bruce Barton

********

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it---and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” Mark Twain.