Follow Your Resistance

Learning to embrace the changes that naturally occur in ones life can be very difficult. It is also challenging to know which direction is the best one regarding a potential change in our lives. When a potential change shows itself, whether personally or professionally, how do we know the best choice to make. The answer is simple, do the thing that you resist the most. Remember that infamous saying, “What we resist persists.” If that is the case, then we have to do the things that we resist so that they don’t keep happening in our lives.

There you have it, the million dollar solution to all our daily challenges, just do the things that you resist doing and you will always know which is the best choice to make to get what you want. This sounds easy in theory, but it sure is difficult to practice. Understanding the nature of resistance can be very helpful in our attempts to practice this idea. I have posted some information below that applies to “business,” but it can equally be applied to “personal” situations.

Decreasing Resistance To Change

The Six (6) Change Approaches of Kotter and Schlesinger is a model to prevent, decrease or minimize resistance to change in organizations.
According to Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), there are four reasons that certain people are resisting change:

* Parochial self-interest (some people are concerned with the implication of the change for themselves ad how it may effect their own interests, rather than considering the effects for the success of the business)

* Misunderstanding (communication problems; inadequate information)

*Low tolerance to change (certain people are very keen on security and stability in their work)

*Different assessments of the situation (some employees may disagree on the reasons for the change and on the advantages and disadvantages of the change process)

Kotter and Schlesinger set out the following six (6) change approaches to deal with this resistance to change:

1. Education and Communication – Where there is a lack of information or inaccurate information and analysis. One of the best ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about the change effort beforehand. Up-front communication and education helps employees see the logic in the change effort. this reduces unfounded and incorrect rumors concerning the effects of change in the organization.

2. Participation and Involvement – Where the initiators do not have all the information they need to design the change and where others have considerable power to resist. When employees are involved in the change effort they are more likely to buy into change rather than resist it. This approach is likely to lower resistance and those who merely acquiesce to change.

3. Facilitation and Support – Where people are resisting change due to adjustment problems. Managers can head-off potential resistance by being supportive of employees during difficult times. Managerial support helps employees deal with fear and anxiety during a transition period. The basis of resistance to change is likely to be the perception that there some form of detrimental effect occasioned by the change in the organization. This approach is concerned with provision of special training, counseling, time off work.

4. Negotiation and Agreement – Where someone or some group may lose out in a change and where that individual or group has considerable power to resist. Managers can combat resistance by offering incentives to employees not to resist change. This can be done by allowing change resistors to veto elements of change that are threatening, or change resistors can be offered incentives to leave the company through early buyouts or retirements in order to avoid having to experience the change effort. This approach will be appropriate where those resisting change are in a position of power.

5. Manipulation and Co-option – Where other tactics will not work or are too expensive. Kotter and Schlesinger suggest that an effective manipulation technique is to co-opt with resisters. Co-option involves the patronizing gesture in bringing a person into a change management planning group for the sake of appearances rather than their substantive contribution. This often involves selecting leaders of the resisters to participate in the change effort. These leaders can be given a symbolic role in decision making without threatening the change effort. Still, if these leaders feel they are being tricked they are likely to push resistance even further than if they were never included in the change effort leadership.

6. Explicit and Implicit Coercion – Where speed is essential and to be used only as last resort. Managers can explicitly or implicitly force employees into accepting change by making clear that resisting to change can lead to losing jobs, firing, transferring or not promoting employees.

8 Most Common Reasons People Resist Change

1) People don’t understand why the change is necessary.
2) People don’t believe the “change” will work.
3) People believe the old way is better.
4) People are afraid that they themselves might fail.
5) People don’t trust the motives of the change agent.
6) There is evidence that the old way works.
7) There is little or no evidence that the new way will work.
The pain associated with changing is greater than the pain of
remaining the same.

Reference 

Reference

Understanding Change

There are only a few certainties that we have to deal with as human beings, that our physical bodies will eventually die and that love causes as much pain as pleasure. Even though change can be a very unpleasant experience, it always has some positive aspects to it. Of course, the happier aspects of change are easier to deal with than the negative ones. Whether a change is positive or negative, it requires an individual to adjust and cope with the change.

For those of us looking to make a significant change in our professional lives, we are faced with a fundamental challenge. That challenge, it would seem, would stem mostly from the difficulty that naturally results in our efforts to uncover which direction we want to go professionally and how to get there. Of course, these things are very challenging. Yet, the biggest challenge that I see when facing such a significant change is how to cope with the nature of change itself. The best way to cope with change is to develop a better understanding of the change process.

The Nature of Change

First and foremost, change occurs on many levels: cultural, social, institutional and individual. To make things even more complicated, the various levels of change often occur without warning and with multiple levels occurring simultaneously. Karl Marx believed that all social change was born from internal contradiction within various class struggles. If we take Marx’s concept and apply it to the individual human being, a better understanding of change can be implemented. The “class” struggle that occurs within the individual would be a struggle of competing beliefs or choices. An individual who chooses a new career has to deal with the mental struggle of competing beliefs; “I have been a lawyer for ten years. Do I have what it takes to open up my own business?” Marx also believed that progress was born from conflict, struggle and violent revolution. In essence, human suffering is a necessary component of change. When the mind battles with new ideas, it must undergo a period of “insanity” or “violent struggle” that allows the old concept to die or dissipate and the new one to set in and become “real.” If individuals don’t find tools that help assist and allow for this struggle to take its course, the process will include much suffering. Just as a wound needs time to heal, the mind needs time to adjust to new ideas and choices.

Thomas Kuhn introduced the concept of a paradigm, which is a conceptual blueprint or arrangement of assumptions that could be seen to constitute a belief system. The key descriptive nature of a paradigm is that it has its own set of rules and creates its own set of facts. The result is that it becomes self-validating and therefore resistant to change. Our beliefs and ideas also need to validate themselves and anything that threatens that belief will be resisted. The transmutation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is an eloquent metaphor that describes the process the mind must take to embrace changes in its belief system. In this metamorphosis. tiny cells that are known as “imaginable discs” begin to appear in the body of the caterpillar. The caterpillar’s immune system does not immediately recognize these discs, and so abruptly wipes them out. Yet, as they multiply and begin to link up, they ultimately overwhelm the caterpillar’s immune system. Its body then breaks down and the imaginable discs build the butterfly from the spent materials of the caterpillar. The same type of process occurs during change. We “imagine” new ideas and choices that must battle our immune system, which causes stress to our physical body. The good news is that in the end, everything always works out to our benefit.

Conditions of Change

For Sociologists the emphasis has recently shifted regarding what is most valuable when it comes to understanding change; emphasis is now focused on the conditions that are most conducive to change rather than what causes change. Each of these conditions result in the kind of social tensions that eventually manifest change. Conditions that tend to spark change include:

1. A lack of cohesion among the various constituents of a social system.

2. The inability of groups/individuals to adjust to their social or physical environment.

3. Rigid and centralized social structures and institutions.

4. High population density & Social Diversity.

5. Creativity and Innovation.

“Planned Change” is a new development associated with the study of change that focuses on the methods of controlling and directing it. Change strategies fall into three categories: rational-empirical (believes that men and women will change on their own given the right conditions because they have rational and practical abilities), normative-reeducative (believe that change begins from the bottom up, not the top down and focuses on changing the individual as the best means to change the whole), & power-cohersive( commonly associated with political movements and social activism). Each of these categories have their own set of strategies to induce change.

RATIONAL-EMPIRICAL: Provide the best information, education, training & tools to assist individuals in implementing change on their own volition. Provide the right opportunities that produce people “in the right place at the right time” to allow for the needed changes. Allow and encourage outside professional help and welcome continued research and development. Promote idealistic thinking that stimulates creativity and “best-case” scenarios. A willingness to clarify issues and rethink a situation to promote greater overall understanding.

NORMATIVE-REEDUCATIVE: Improve the problem solving capacities of systems by encouraging individuals to be self-diagnosing. Release and foster growth in the individuals who make up a system.

POWER-COERCIVE: Using political institutions to achieve change by shifting the balance of power between social groups and ruling elites. Weakening and dividing the opposition through moral coercion or strategies of nonviolence.

Finally, I will list five learning disciplines that a system should emulate to engage in continuous innovation.

1. Personal Mastery: The practice of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies toward our goals, of nurturing patience, and always striving to be objective.

2. Analyzing Thinking Habits: Working with mental models to expose our own ways of thinking and to allow that thinking to be open to the influence of others.

3. Build a Shared Vision: Uncover shared ideas regarding the future that stimulate a genuine commitment and enrollment versus compliance.

4. Learn as a Team: This starts with dialogue, an ability to overcome defensiveness and other “destructive” behaviors that prevent learning — individually and collectively.

5. Think Systemically: This occurs by seeing patterns and connecting the “dots” of behavior and interrelated actions, which can take years to fully play out so as not to affect each other.

Portions of this newsletter were derived from Scott London’s article, “Understanding Change: The Dynamics of Social Transformation.”

Getting Through The Work Day Strategies

People sometimes get stuck in a job due to a lack of education or because of a bad economy, but that doesn’t mean that their work day needs to be a painful experience. With a little innovation and imagination, it is easy to make the best of a “bad” job. Here are some ideas that may help.

• Work on your job skills. Imagining yourself in your dream job, you might see yourself as an excellent leader – highly confident and supremely organized. Why not work on these skills in your present job?

• Develop your own project. Take on a project that can motivate you and give you a sense of control. Start small, such as organizing a work-related celebration, before moving on to larger goals. Working on something you care about can boost your confidence.

• Stay busy. Having too much free time may leave you with too much time to think about what’s wrong with your job.

Stay Positive

Change the way you view your job by challenging your thinking to be positive. Changing your attitude about work doesn’t happen overnight. But if you remain alert to ways your view of work brings you down, you may eventually replace negative thoughts with more positive ones. Here are a few techniques:

• Stop negative thoughts. Pay attention to the messages you give yourself. When you catch yourself thinking your job is terrible, stop the thought in its tracks. Awareness is the first step to this step and is achieved by learning how to “read” your thoughts like you would a book. Learning to view the content of your thinking is very valuable.

• Put things in perspective. Remember, everyone encounters good days and bad days on the job. That doesn’t mean that you should pretend to be excited that you are having a bad day. It just means that you choose to accept it as part of the professional experience. If everything was always good, then we wouldn’t know it because we wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. Experiencing a bad day will make a good one that much better.

• Look for the silver lining. “Reframing” can help you find the good in a bad situation. For example, you receive a less than perfect performance appraisal and your boss warns you to improve or move to another job. Instead of taking it personally or looking for another job right away, look for the silver lining. Depending on where you work, the silver lining may be attending continuing education classes, working closely with a performance coach and having the satisfaction of showing your boss you’re capable of change. Being proactive means that we are in control of our destiny, versus being a victim to it.

• Learn from your mistakes. Failure is one of the greatest learning tools, but many people let failure defeat them. When you make a mistake at work, learn from it and try again. The reality is, we fail as much, if not more, than we succeed.

• Be grateful. Gratitude can help you focus on what’s positive about your job. Ask yourself, “What am I grateful for at work today?” If it’s only that you’re having lunch with a trusted co-worker, that’s OK. But find at least one thing you’re grateful for and cherish it. When all is said and done, a positive experience begins with a heartfelt appreciation for what we have and what we are doing.