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Motivation
The Super Beings Who Are the Masters of Change
Revealing the secrets of their amazing abilities.
Posted September 6, 2019
We’re often told, at work and other places, that change is difficult to manage and deal with. I’ve regularly heard it stated that “people don’t like change.” Such statements usually come right before a manager, supervisor, or some other person in a position of seniority tells us of some major changes that are about to occur.
How, then, do we cope with the change we’ll undoubtedly encounter sooner or later? People, in their jobs, can, at any time, be confronted with restructurings and other changes to processes and policies, with often significant consequences.
To help people deal with change, there’s an ever-increasing amount of advice and suggestions. Some people even work as “change management consultants” because of how difficult change is supposed to be. Organizations produce documented steps to follow which are intended to help, as much as possible, to reduce the impact of the change they are planning for their employees.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were creatures who adapted easily to change? If we could identify such beings, we might be able to learn from them about the secrets of their success so that we could smoothly deal with any change that comes our way.
Actually, such beings do exist. We are those beings. In fact, all living things are those beings. Life itself is a process of continual change, adjustment, adapting, and recalibrating.
We are so supremely good at changing on a moment-to-moment, minute-by-minute, and daily basis that, for the most part, we don’t even know we’re doing it. We don’t need help and support to manage change as much as we need a new perspective that recognizes how expertly we already deal with change.
There are certainly improvements that can be made to many change processes, but if we get better at recognizing and appreciating our own prowess at managing change, we might have a better sense of where the improvements need to occur.
Change is, ironically, a constant aspect of our daily life. It is just as much a part of our ongoing getting on with things as breathing in and out. We wouldn’t be able to drive our cars more than a few feet down the road if we weren’t able to constantly and quickly change to produce the necessary actions. What is it that makes an action “necessary”?
The “necessary” aspect of all actions is the result they produce for us. But actions don’t occur in a vacuum. We always act in a particular situation, or environment, or context. And situations and environments are constantly changing. The conditions you successfully conquered to maneuver your car from home to work yesterday won’t be the same conditions you have to negotiate today. We always act to do something.
All-day, every day, there are forces around us, often unseen, that threaten to disrupt our plans and make our worlds be different from what we want. Because we’re so used to effortlessly fending off these disturbances, that sentence might seem overly dramatic.
But consider what would happen if we stopped acting even for just a few minutes. What would happen if we took our hands off the steering wheel? How would we look if we stopped fiddling with our hair or our tie or stopped touching up our lipstick?
All-day, every day, a ceaseless dance unfolds of actions keeping in step with changes around us so that we continue to get what we want, rather than what the environment might send our way. So, how do we know how to act at any given point in time to combat these forces and keep things the way we want them to be?
That’s the really marvelously ingenious thing about how we are put together. At every point in time, the way we act is determined jointly by what we want and the environment around us. If I’m driving my car, and if I want my car not to touch the car in front, then if the car in front starts to get closer than I would like, my necessary actions will be to slow my car down.
Notice here that I didn’t suggest particular arm and leg movements! “Slow my car down” is an outcome or a result, not an action. I could just take my foot off the accelerator pedal; I could also add pressure to the brake pedal.
How quickly I do any of this, and how much pressure I might apply, will depend on the two things I’ve already mentioned: what I want and what’s happening around me. If the car in front is getting closer really quickly, I’ll apply a lot more pressure than if it’s getting larger in front of my eyes only very slowly.
Large, sudden environmental changes need the same kinds of actions in response. Smaller, more gradual, and subtle changes require less extreme actions. There’s a symmetry here, swirling around each and every one of our intentions or expectations, that is one of nature’s most exquisitely beautiful designs.
The more suddenly, unexpectedly, and violently an environmental change occurs, the more extreme our actions need to be. Sometimes, environmental forces are too overwhelming, such as with a hurricane or a tyrannical boss. Those situations can require much longer periods of adjustment, but even with these drastic occurrences, the most common outcome is that people recover, bounce back, and are sometimes even better off than they were before.
Given the way we work and the environments we inhabit, it’s safe to say that change, itself, is never the problem. We are ideally constructed to manage change. It is the type of change, rather than change per se, that can be problematic.
There are some clues here for managers and other decision-makers who may be contemplating workplace changes. The more a proposed change is unexpected and severe, and the more it interrupts or blocks a person’s goals, the more extreme will be the person’s response. Think about cars on the road. If the car slowing down is a long way in front, we get plenty of time to adjust.
And by the way, when change is described as either unexpected and severe, or expected and gradual, it is the perspective of the person experiencing the change that is paramount. It is irrelevant, in terms of the response that will follow, as to whether or not the manager thought she had prepared her staff well. What matters is what the staff think.
Let me state it again: Change is never the problem. We are the ultimate masters of change. It’s the type of change that sometimes occurs that can be problematic. To achieve efficient, harmonious, and productive workplaces, managers and employers should do all that they can to help their staff “adjust accordingly” to any changes they are thinking of introducing.
Ensure changes are not sudden or unexpected and enable people to continue to achieve goals that are important to them. These are the simple and reasonable kinds of things that people who are introducing changes can arrange so that the people being impacted will experience the winds of change as a gentle summer breeze rather than a hurricane.
