Are You in Charge?

When times are tough does an inner victim take over, or do you take charge of your own destiny?

Economically times are tough now, particularly if you work within the public sector. There is a high level of uncertainty about security of employment, future roles, and the knowledge that, even if your job is safe, perhaps adequate funding to do it is not.

 In short, it’s not currently a great place to be. I work within the public sector a lot, indeed I was a manager and practitioner in both, and my heart goes out to the individuals who are coping with the uncertainty that now hovers over them. This post is dedicated to all those facing huge uncertainty; many people in the private sector will find it resonates too.

How to Take Charge?

One of the reasons we find it so challenging is because we feel we have no control over events; it feels like we’re on the back foot, waiting to react to events as they occur. And that makes us feel helpless. And feeling helpless makes us feel like a victim, possibly like a child, which in turn saps our confidence and leaves us feeling inadequate: less able to cope with what may be coming. A vicious cycle.

I have lots of coaching clients at the moment who feel very vulnerable and exposed; and as their confidence levels dip so does their ability to cope.

A common reaction is to try and ignore what is happening, to stay in denial for as long as possible. A certain amount of ostrich like behaviour is normal, but for your own self respect and sanity, take back some control.

Questions

Knowledge is power and empowering. You need some information that is particular to you before you make any decisions, or are bounced into making decisions! Simply exploring all your options in case your job disappears does not make it any more like to happen. Facing your fears does put you in control!

Here are some questions it’s worth knowing the answers to:

• How much do you actually need to live on?
• What are your regular outgoings?
• What is your status vis a vis redundancy? Do you know what your entitlement would be if redundancy was on offer/proposed?
• How do you look after yourself best, keep yourself well and manage your stress levels?
• Are you currently doing any of those things? Or planning to do them?
• Who are the friends who support and sustain you? Your radiators?
• How have you coped with significant life change in the past (and you will have coped with lots of changes!)
• What’s your worst fear about the changes afoot? Is it possible loss of income? Role? Status? Companionship? Stimulation?
• What would you love to do if you weren’t in your current role?

If you can answer all of those questions you will be well on the way to taking back some of the control that uncertainty wrests from you. You can’t do much about the economic situation we find ourselves in, or the political decisions being made which affect your life.

But you can CHOOSE how you react!

Nobody can take your ability to hold your own thoughts away from you. And you can make a choice about those thoughts. I don’t mean some trite ‘think beautiful thoughts and change the universe’ philosophy. No, instead I am talking about holding onto to your sense of self, not giving away your own power; being aware that you are so much more than the sum of your parts and the job description you have, and making the choice not to be a victim!

If you find yourself in a time of uncertainty I hope the above is of some use to you. If this is a situation you have previously experienced it would be great to hear how you came through, what worked and what didn’t.  I am currently writing a programme to help employees survive and thrive in times of uncertainty. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

If you manage staff then this may be of interest!

Learning Through Change – Do You?

How many times have you said to yourself at work:
“I’ve seen it all before; it didn’t work then and it won’t work now”

If I had a pound coin for every time I’ve heard that when running change seminars I’d have very heavy pockets!

Yet before dismissing such utterances as cynicism from died in the wool change resistors it is worth taking stock. Evaluating the successes and the unsuccessful is a crucial element in managing the change process, yet it it astounding how often this bit gets left out.

When Change Doesn’t Work

In large corporations a failed change strategy often results in the lead person ‘leaving’ with others then politically distancing themselves from the process. Very few senior executives seem prepared to look in depth at the processes as learning for next time.

In my experience of working within several large organisations, the most successful are those that can take into account the people who actually deliver the job on the ground and involve and engage them from day one. The top down approach simply doesn’t cut it any more.

A recent government report prepared by David McCloud and Nita Clarke put it this way:

‘We believe that if employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood, if good practice was more widely shared, if the potential that resides in the country’s workforce was more fully unleashed, we could see a step change in workplace performance and in employee well-being, for the considerable benefit of UK plc.

Engagement, going to the heart of the workplace relationship between employee and employer, can be a key to unlocking productivity and to transforming the working lives of many people for whom Monday morning is an especially low point of the week’.
Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee engagement. July 2009

So the old ‘seen it all before’ cynic may teach us something after all! Step one in any change process is get your people on board!

And the same principle applies to personal change. Who are the key people you need to support you in any changes you want to make? Are they with you, supporting you? Or are they secretly trying to sabotage you as they are fearful of the consequences? Always check first!

If you’d like to find out more about my seminars for managing your staff through change and uncertainty click here!

The Paradox of Change

The Universe is Change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius Antonius

Change is a paradox because actually nothing ever stays the same; all is change. Our bodies today are not the same bodies we had yesterday. There have been masses of tiny changes, small but incrementally they add up to something very significant. I do not look the same person from 10 years ago, but I don’t notice a significant change in my appearance today from yesterday, yet I am different.

In nature the changes may appear slow as we go through the seasons, watching day to day changes in plants and flowers, the weather.  There is a cycle of nature which we understand. And yet nature can surprise us often with volcanic dust clouds, heat-waves, floods and earthquakes. It is changing all the time.

Understanding that life is constant change is a fundamental concept to grasp if we’re to manage other changes in our lives successfully. Everything you have experienced has brought you to today, is part of you today and impacts on you and your future. You have an extraordinary and immense capacity to cope with change.

You are truly amazing!

Change – How to Survive Tip 3

Whatever age you are, you will have already experienced a lot of change. Even if it’s just leaving school to your first job, or going to college, or moving house, or getting a new sibling, you have experienced change. And the older you are the more changes.

Managing Change Tip

List ten changes that have happened in your life, over which you had little control. For example, you probably had to leave school at a certain age. Or your firm downsized. Or your industry became flooded with new technology (print, photography). Maybe your personal life went into freefall. But don’t only focus on negative change experiences, look for the positives too.

Now, consider your list. You have survived all those changes and are probably much better at dealing with change than you may think. What skills and qualities do you have that have helped you in the past, and will help you in the future?

It can be really helpful to do this exercise with a friend and share stories and ideas. And please do share any of your own tips!

If you want to be sure of getting all the tips in the series, why not sign up for the updates to be delivered straight to your in box. You can simply fill in your email in the box at top right of this page. And if you’d like to subscribe to my free newsletter there is more information here.

Change – How to Survive Tip 1

Change is most definitely in the air at the moment. But actually there is rarely a time when change is not with us – thankfully, or we’d still be scratching our heads wondering if a wheel might be a good idea or not!

I work in a lot of organisations who are undergoing change and the initial response is nearly always the same. Employees feel threatened and anxious, sickness levels go up, productivity suffers. And the toll on individuals can be enormous.

That’s the downside. But don’t forget change can also be hugely positive! It’s hard to remember that when change is being imposed but you will probably have had as many positive experiences of change in your life as negative ones. It’s just that we remember the negative ones so much more clearly!

If you are experiencing a lot of uncertainty in your personal life, a change at work over which you have no control can be the final straw. The Holmes and Rahe stress scale is still a useful guide to thinking about the impact more change might have on you.

Managing Change Tip

My first tip is to take a look at it, see how you rate and then take steps to look after yourself. It might be that you join up with a friend to help and support each other, or make sure you are eating healthily and look after yourself physically. Or find out what is on offer in your organisation to help you – mentoring, counselling, even subsidised gym membership!

Resolve now not to be a victim of the changes but take some control where you can.

This is the first in a series on managing change. If you want to be certain of getting every post you can sign up for them simply by putting your email address in box at top of this page. And you can unsubscribe at any time.

How to Cope with Change

Change can produce stress and anxiety in us. This article will give you some tips on how to Manage Change, how to cope with it, and how to survive it! Read on for your short guide on personal change management techniques and information on the STAGES OF CHANGE.

In this article I am going to explore how we react and respond to change and give you some advice that works for managing it – rather than it managing you!

Coping with Change – The Short Version!

There is a massive amount of literature on the topic, some research based, some anecdotal, and some simply telling you how to do it. The amount of information can be overwhelming and not all of it is helpful! One of my favourite books, by the way is Who Moved My Cheese? which is usually cheapest on Amazon. I’ll summarise what most of the others say for you here:

Change is awful when imposed upon us, almost no one likes it.

We are shocked that our world is not staying the same.

We don’t believe it is happening and try to ignore it or resist it.

Then we realise it is happening and get frustrated and cross as it dawns on us that things will change.

Sometimes, depending on the severity of the change, we can get very fed up, even depressed.

Then we start to think about the change and decide to try out a few ideas to make sense of the change.

This phase goes on for ages or not too long, depending on the change.

Some people embrace change and some resist it.

It’s best to find out who they are and delegate/make friends accordingly.

Finally, we absorb/accept/integrate the change into our lives and get on with it.

The Stages of Change

Obviously that is a rather simplistic view but in essence, the stages of change that we go through (and we can go back and forth between them, apart from the first two) are:

Shock
Disbelief
Frustration/anger
Feeling low
Experimenting with changed circumstances
Going back to being fed up if it doesn’t work,
Experimenting again
Making a decision to integrate the change into our lives.

A Change Story

Here is a short story about change. It may ring a bell with you.

One day you arrive at your workplace after a week on holiday. You are feeling bright and chirpy, but as you walk into your open plan office you immediately see that during your absence someone has rearranged the room layout and your desk has been moved!

Your first reaction is probably one of shock as you start to walk to your usual spot only to realise that it has been replaced by a state of the art photocopier. You are speechless at first. What is going on? Someone helpfully explains that they decided on a change around in your absence.

“What?” you say, I don’t believe it” and cast your eyes around for verification from someone else. Other people in the office are nodding at you in confirmation and your disbelief disappears to be replaced by anger. Depending on how important it is to you where you sit you may be more or less angry. You may just be a bit frustrated or you may be fuming. If you have had to cope with a lot of change in your life recently this might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and you may want to explode.

However, everyone is looking at you and so you sit down and check through your desk to ensure that all your belongings are still there. Finding they are, you are ever so slightly mollified but then you look up and realise that your view of the door is now obscured. Worse, someone you find especially irritating is now just a few feet away and is already talking nineteen to the dozen to you as you have inadvertently made eye contact and given them permission to speak!

Your shoulders slump as it dawns on you what sitting in this new place will be like. You did not have any control over this change and you become more and more fed up as you wonder how you can stand it. For an hour or two you sit there doing your work in a desultory fashion with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

But then, as you are idly fiddling with the computer screen, you realise that you can actually change the angle of your desk which gives you a view of the window and takes you out of eye contact with your talkative colleague. You can also put the monitor on the other side of your desk opening up a better view across the office, and, yes, joy of joys, your lovely spider plant will fit perfectly on the window sill!

In a mood of new enthusiasm you make these changes, and by the end of the day you have reasserted a little control over the situation. By the time you go home you have ‘integrated’ the change to such an extent that it doesn’t even rate a mention when your partner asks how your day was! You have just gone through all the stages associated with change…and survived!

Try This

A useful exercise to undertake is to think back over changes you have previously experienced and look at the coping strategies you employed then. For example, supposing you have had a difficult separation from a previous partner. Begin by drawing two parallel lines on a sheet of paper. The top line is for you to record the actual facts of the situation. So, maybe in June you noticed that you were having more arguments or long silences than usual. That is a fact to record on the top line.

Underneath is your feelings or emotions line. What were you actually feeling at the time? Try and be honest, no one but you is going to see this. For example, did it make you sad, angry, vulnerable, or determined to make more effort, or confirm your thoughts that the relationship had run its course?

Although we tend to follow a pattern in reacting to change it is still differently expressed for each of us. What was the next sequence of events and what did you do? Remember to be factual on the top and look at your feelings at the time below. It can be difficult to recall exactly how you felt but try. Use two different colours if you like. Remember to put down all the excellent things you did as well; don’t just focus on the negatives.

Once you have your two lines completed to the best of your ability look again and see if you can spot a strategy emerging. It can be really helpful to look at two changes, one you feel you coped with well and one that was more of a problem for you. Can you see how you have previously reacted to change in those two lines?

Control

Something that usually emerges is that we respond better when we feel we have some control over the change. When you changed schools as a child you probably had to because of age or moving house, but changing jobs may have been a choice you made so adapting was easier. As time goes on we experience more and more change and develop more coping strategies. Sometimes we miss the significance of these and don’t always consciously apply these skills and experience to other times of change. This exercise will help you identify the many skills you have in this area and you will have lots!

Mind Over Matter

One of the most common things said to me by people experiencing change is that they feel helpless; there is nothing that they can do to alter what is happening. Obviously, our responses to change are individual and personal. However, our thoughts, and therefore our feelings, about change are of paramount importance in how we deal with it. We sometimes have a tendency to believe that we cannot do anything about how we feel.
‘It’s just the way I feel’ Or ‘You make me feel so cross’.

Actually, no one makes us feel anything. We feel and react the way we do because of our experiences in life and the uniqueness of us and because of choices we make, even if we choose to do nothing!

Look again at your feelings line from the previous exercise. Were you consciously managing those feelings or were they overwhelming you? If it was period when you were feeling particularly good about yourself it may have been the former. If it was a particularly bad time when your self esteem was low, you may have been comparing yourselves unfavourably with others, retreating into yourself and not attempting to exert any control over what was happening. For example, something I do might cause one person to smile and feel amused, another to frown and feel aggrieved, even if the action from me is the same and they both experience it at the same time.

Similarly with our responses to change; the same event can produce entirely different reactions in different people. One may approach it in a positive way, looking for areas where they can influence what is about to happen, while another may be much more fatalistic, expecting the worst and feeling helpless and buffeted by events.

You Choose

Whatever route we take change will still happen, but we can CHOOSE how we will respond to it. This knowledge that we always have a choice is the single most empowering fact I can share with you!

Suggestions for Further Reading available from Amazon
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson