Why does this matter to me as the implementer of innovation and technical change? Remembering that organisations are relational processes, not things, helps us stay aware of the fact that if you want to change your organisation, there is no organisation there for you to change. What there is for you to change is you and the relationships, habits, expectations, agreements, rules, regulations, policies and procedures that have been established in the past. What we really are talking about when we consider changing our organisations is changing the behaviour and mind-sets of people, and changing the people-related and people-perpetuated systems that are involved in our work.
What is personal change?
Personal change can come from skills-based learning of the types we have
tried to provide in this CD-ROM, or it can come more dramatically as the
result of a personal crisis. In either situation, we perceive ourselves to
be different after the experience(s). Although this is far from being fully
understood, either in terms of the process or its outcomes, once you have
been through it, it is easier to appreciate. Personal change occurs at an
intellectual and emotional level. That is why it is hard to define solely in
verbal or intellectual terms. We do not have a well-formed vocabulary to
communicate the emotional experiences involved.
One way people have begun to talk about these processes is in terms of changes in the way we view the world, changes in our perceptions of reality, or shifts in our personal paradigms. Paradigm shifts have been discussed for years within many different contexts. For example, when we as humans shifted from the belief that the earth was the centre of the universe to our current view that the sun is the centre, we shifted paradigms. When the world 'became' round, that is, when Europeans decided that the world was no longer flat, our collective paradigm shifted and the world was no longer flat. On a more personal and individual level, our paradigms shift as well. If you are married and/or you have any children, think about how the world completely changed after these events.
The word paradigm comes from the Greek root paradeigma, meaning 'model' or 'pattern'. A paradigm, therefore, may be defined as a set of assumptions, as the thoughts, perceptions, and values that form a particular version of reality. Our paradigm is the way we view the world. It is the water to the fish. Paradigms explain the world to us and help us to predict its behaviour. An example of a personal, perceptual paradigm shift can occur if you look at the black arrow in the upper right corner of the following figure, and then look at the straight black line on the left edge. What else do you see?
Most of us have been perceptually trained to look at the 'black ink' in Figure 1, both by our experiences of reading and because of my initial directions to look at the black arrow and the straight line. With this perceptual bias we tend to look at the ink where we see an arrow, the line and some strange shapes. However, if we look at what artists talk about as 'negative space' and try to see the word that is spelled out in the white space framed by the black ink, we should be able to see the word 'FLY.' If you can not see the word at first, at the moment when you can, you experience a paradigm shift. The word 'FLY' was there all along. However, until our perceptual paradigm changed, it did not exist for us. It is these shifts in the way we view the world that provide significant and lasting personal and organisational change. Quick fixes, within both our personal lives and applied to our problems at work, do not make the fundamental shifts necessary for profound and enduring change.
Resistance to
personal change - Why personal change is difficult
Humans are built to resist certain changes. Take a second and fold
your hands. That is, inter-lace your fingers as if you were going to rest
them in your lap. Notice which thumb you have on top. Now refold your hands
with the other thumb on top. How does that feel? Now, fold your arms across
your chest, then try refolding them with the other arm on top. What is it
like to do that? How does that feel? Most likely, in one or both cases, you
felt a bit uncomfortable. After thousands of years of natural selection and
adaptation, we humans have become "hard wired" to resist change once we have
figured out how to do something. That is to say, that we have become very
good learners. Once we learn something, however, we tend to stay with what
has worked in the past. Many of us become comfortable with the way things
are, we form habits and patterns, and we naturally resist any innovation or
change.
How many of us go out of our way to change the normal sequences of activities in our lives because we like to do it? Of course, there are some. The vast majority of us, however, put our clothing on in the same sequence every morning, we frequent the same dining and vacation spots, we have the same conversations with the same people over and over. There is a rhythm and a cadence to human activities and many of us find comfort and security in this. Because of this characteristic of humans, we need to read manuals like this. It is the same natural tendency that I have been writing about above, that makes it so difficult to innovate and to make personal and organisational changes.
Why have I spent so much time trying to draw this connection? The answer is that in organisations for some reason, we seem to forget that people are human. We seem to think that the way things are with humans when they are not at work, should not have anything to do with the way humans are at work. This is, of course, untrue. We speak of resistance to change as if it were some horrible consequence of the wrong organisational structure or as an unnatural by-product of certain (&!?!$#!-ing) individuals with which we alone have to work. We forget that we are all resistant to change to some degree or another, otherwise we would very likely be dead by now, or at least at home still trying to re-learn how to get out of bed in the morning. Humans are used to and build for slow, steady, incremental change; we are not built for, or comfortable with, continual, rapid, unpredictable, transformational change. Unfortunately, this later type of change is rapidly becoming the norm in our working lives. Because of this basic element of the condition of human beings, we must expend resources and energy to overcome it. We can not allow ourselves to get upset with people who do not seem to want to learn or to change. They are the ones who are being normal humans. Our job is to recognise this as fact, and to plan to deal with it.
Personal change is difficult because it takes time and effort, yet many of us tend to think that it should be quick and effortless. If it took me 30 years to become the person I am now, why should I think I can change in 30 minutes? You would not expect to become physically fit after a single three kilometre run. As part of a fitness program, you would start off slowly, and work consistently performing a number of different exercises, routines, and distances over a long period of time. This is how to best approach personal growth and change, as if it were some form of intrapersonal and interpersonal fitness program.
A second thing to remember is that personal change happens in stages. We do not change from acting, thinking, and feeling one way to being the person we would like to be without passing through a number of intermediate forms. In other words, we will not achieve all of our personal change goals at once. Again, this process takes time and we may not always be able to see the series of small successes as clearly as when something dramatic happens. Also, growth, change, and skills development seem to follow some cyclical patterns. I find that there are periods in my life in which I am growing and changing very much and other periods that, regardless of what I do, I do not seem to be making any headway. This is important to remember so that you do not become discouraged during periods of little or no change.
Another thing to remember is that personal and organisational change, as with skills development, take effort and activity. That is to say, I can not learn by sitting around doing nothing. Of course, thinking and self-reflection are integral parts of the process. However, thought and intention without behavioural practice gets us no where.
There are no "five easy steps" to personal change and fulfilment. By definition, change requires energy and, therefore, effort. A basic principle of physics is that things at rest tend to stay at rest, and things in motion stay in motion. It requires energy to make objects at rest move or to change the direction of moving things. The same is true for learning and change. It takes time, effort and persistence to achieve and maintain significant personal and organisational growth and development. However, learning and change are not completely linear processes. That is, one unit of effort does not always result in one unit of change. Especially at the outset, you may see significant change once you begin to really apply yourself. Conversely, there may be times when you are investing tremendous effort and energy, and only seeing minimal gains. At these times, it is important not to get discouraged.
The process of personal change
We will explore a four stage model of personal change adapted from the work
of Kurt Lewin, who is arguably the founder of the processes we now refer to
as organisational development.
A Model of the Personal Change Process
It is important that we view personal change as a process of stages for several reasons. First, it helps us to identify where we are so we can plan to change, as well as mark progress or periods of stagnation. It helps us to align strategy and activities and to allow the process the time it needs. For example, if we are very early on in our personal change process, we should not be expecting to have got it all right, we should be reminding ourselves that change takes time and effort, and we should be working hard at our exercises and the change technologies to be discussed in the next section. Finally, viewing personal change as a process over a number of different stages reminds us that our incentives may change over time. This is important as the things that motivate us early on in the process may be very different from what drives us towards the end. The stages considered here are unlearning, changing, relearning, and institutionalising change.
Unlearning: The motivation to action. Before we can change, there has to be the motivation to do so. Because personal transformation takes effort and time it requires great energy. We have to feel a need to change in order to generate the necessary activity and momentum to do so. We also have to manage our natural resistance to change. It is during this first stage of the process that we are beginning to feel dissatisfied with what is going on in our lives and we sometimes start to think that what we are doing, thinking, and feeling is somehow not 'right'. We also begin to realise the need to actually un-learn some of what we have learned in the past because it no longer seems to be working for us.
Changing: The process of transformation. This second stage in the overall personal change process is itself a process that has a number of phases within it.
This model illustrates that in order for us to make significant personal change we must not only understand and learn new concepts and ideas, but we have to have the opportunity to practice the new behaviours, we have to get feedback and see the effects and consequences of these new ways of thinking and behaving, and we must practice the new patterns often enough so that they become integrated and we eventually consider these new patterns to be 'the way we are.'
The process starts as we gain self-awareness and self-knowledge. Once we know where we are, we can begin the process of going elsewhere. We then have to begin learning new concepts and ideas, and we need to begin practising new ways of thinking and behaving. We will discuss this stage in more detail in the next section. The process ends with our incorporating these new thoughts and behaviours into our formulations of 'the way we are' so that we can complete the cycle and see a change from 'the way we used to be.' This last aspect will be discussed further below as well.
Relearning: Practising new thoughts and behaviour. Once we have felt the need to change, unlearned old habits and patterns, managed the inevitable resistance, and begun to change our thinking and behaviour, we must continue to practice, and eventually to institutionalise these new responses. It is at this relearning, and the fourth (i.e., institutionalising change), stage of the process that the tools of personal change become critical. We will discuss three tools for personal change: personal journals, a personal management system or diary, and the day of difference.
1. Personal journals. A good way to document and facilitate your personal change processes is to write down your thoughts, feelings and impressions. When we do this, we reflect on things that have happened to us and we help consolidate our insights. Personal journals may be used to keep account of events of the day, insights, ideas, critical incidents, feelings, patterns of behaviour, quotes, stories, jokes, names, particularly as they relate to your skills development program. You will get better at listening to your inner self as you do more of this.
There are several ways you can keep your journal. One of the first things people consider doing is to reflect on things that have happened during the day. This can be done as a more or less random process of recording what happened, what you thought, how you felt, what you wanted to do, what you actually did, what you should have done, who was involved, what you think they thought, felt, wanted to do, actually did, etc. It is also valuable to recognise the interconnections among the elements and how they effected each other. Others, who prefer more structure, actually record a backward or forward review of the day, starting or ending with waking up and what happened before you began the review exercise. Two other possibilities are to record critical incidents such as conflicts, successes, failures, decisions, interpretations, hunches and to write a story as if you were an unbiased third party, a witness or observer. The benefits of this are not only the exercise of the will and self-discipline that are beneficial, but the insights provided about yourself, your reactions and behaviours. It is also suggested that this type of exercise sharpens your thinking abilities and helps improve your memory (Boydell, 1985).
2. Personal Organisers or Diaries. A large and growing number of people are using some form of personal organising system, time management system, or daily diary. Many people simply feel that it is useless to try to remember things when you do not have to. Therefore, many of us choose to record all of our appointments, our planning activities, responsibilities, roles, activities, etc., in a diary of some sort. If we do not lose it, it can be a simple and effective means of organised. Stephen Covey, well known author and founder of the Salt Lake City, Utah based Institute for Principle-Centred Leadership, has developed a sophisticated personal organisation system that comes with the "Covey Diary" packed full of instructions and information. Many people find this type of product useful. However, you need not spend more than $20 to get a good personal diary that can fit into your pocket in order to derive significant benefits.
3. Day of difference. This is a day where you set your intention to do certain things differently, simply for the sake of change. You attempt to unfreeze your thinking and behaviour, and try to break old behavioural and thought patterns. We have a great associative memory between our muscles and our thoughts. If we change our activities, we stimulate some new thoughts. Consider what the worst thing is that could happen if you tried something new. We frequently have thoughts that if we do something new we will look stupid, make someone angry, etc. Frequently, however, these are merely habitual thought patterns and are not really applicable to what you have in mind. If we take the time to realistically look at the situation, we may find that we really would not look stupid, just different. We would not make someone angry, they really would not care very much one way or the other.
These new behaviours and thoughts we are discussing can range from quite simple and private to more complex and public. For example, you could change the location in which you get dressed in the morning, where you eat breakfast or change what you eat or the sequence of clothing you put on. You can take a different road to work or use a different mode of transport. You can start your work day by conversing with colleagues or by ploughing into your work, whichever you normally do not do. You could rearrange your schedule if it is in a distinct pattern. You could take a day off to stay home and play, with or without the kids. You could go into work on Saturday and/or Sunday, if you never do, just to see what it is like and to rearrange the office or do that filing or organising you have been meaning to do for ages. You can change the style of your clothing, change the food you eat, deliberately confront someone you have been avoiding, listen to the radio, read a book, or just sit and talk at night instead of watching the TV. You could say hello and talk to a complete stranger.
On your day of difference, you can also practise keeping an open mind. You can practise believing something that you normally would not. You can attempt to see someone else's point of view or to agree with and actually try to argue for their opinions when you would normally simply dismiss them. You can use your journal and diary to help you with this. Try playing the 'devil's advocate' with yourself. You may be surprised how you can actually begin to appreciate that the world is not simply how you first thought it was. That there may be some shades of grey to the black and white.
Institutionalising change: Making personal development a habit. Rather than thinking that all we have to do is make a few changes and then be done with it, personal growth and development is best seen more as a continuous process. Just as many firms are beginning to involve their employees in decision-making, problem-solving, and quality improvement groups toward the end of continuous improvement, so too can we as individuals. You can think of this process of personal transformation as paralleling an organisation's total quality management and continuous improvement programs. Personal transformation can be viewed as TQM for the individual.
Requirements for personal change
In order for any personal change to happen, there are three essential
elements that must be present.
The first element is awareness. If you think about an alcoholic, it is often said that getting that person to admit to their problem is the beginning of their road to recovery. Similarly, if we do not have a good idea of who we are and where we are within the context of our personal journeys, there is little hope of our making significant progress.
The second major prerequisite for significant personal change is having the necessary resources. There is no way to make personal change without a significant investment of resources such as time, money, and effort. I often marvel at people who expect to see major life, or organisational, changes within a few days or weeks. We are the way we are because of a series of factors both environmental and genetic that can not easily be altered without significant investment.
A third major prerequisite for personal growth and development, is what we refer to as facilitating structures. Going back to our alcoholic analogy, once alcoholics admit that they have a problem, they need a great deal of support to stay off alcohol. People attend regular meetings and have lists of names and phone numbers they can call on to provide support during the times of inevitable crisis. These facilitating structures are often neglected in organisational settings. The importance of rites, rituals, processes, discussions, support-people, etc. is hard to exaggerate. These facilitating structures provide an element usually missing in unsuccessful personal change efforts.
Another model of the requirements for change in organisations, is adapted from work done by Beckhard (1969). His model states that there are three conditions that must be fulfilled before we can expect any personal and, therefore, organisational change to begin. There must be (1) dissatisfaction with the present situation, (2) a vision of what is possible or possibly different in the future, and (3) the first steps to reach the vision must be clear and achievable. If they are all present, then their product will actually fulfil the following equation:
dissatisfaction X vision X first steps > natural resistance to change
If any element on the left is not present, there will be no possibility of overcoming the natural resistance to change. In order to motivate people to begin the process of change, therefore, you need to focus people's attention on:
- The way they see the past and current
situations not living up to their expectations and causing high levels
of dissatisfaction with the way we now do business.
- A positive image of their future, a
vision of what it could be like, and the confidence that this vision can
and will be followed through on and achieved.
- The specific actions they could all
agree would move them in the right direction, i.e., the first steps on
the long road of change.
- An awareness that change is a slow,
long-term process, not something we do once and then forget about.
- Involve people where and when appropriate. Educate people and provide information. People need information so badly, that if you do not give it to them, they will make it up themselves.
Reactions to change
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross studied death and dying for over 50 years. She uses a
model of the psychological adjustment process many individuals seem to go
through when confronted with the loss of a loved-one. The model seems to
apply equally well to how many people adjust to personal and organisational
change more generally. When someone dies, we must adjust to life without
them. We must reconfigure our view of the world. Similarly, although
sometimes not as profoundly, when asked to make personal change at work, we
must also get used to life being different. Innovation and technical change
frequently requires us to alter our attitudes, beliefs and views of the
world.
The first stage of the model is concerned with denial and isolation. It is at this point that we might say that "I can't believe it. They really can't be thinking of doing that." During this first stage, people frequently think the necessity to change does not relate to them. People think that if they ignore it, it will go away. The changes are considered just another management fad, flavour-of-the-month.
If the changes seem to persist, however, people may begin to become angry. Feelings of fear, of being out of control, or frustrated are not unusual at this second stage in the adjustment process.
Still further down the road, some people may begin the process of bargaining regarding the required changes. Also, feelings of panic, attempts to place blame and avoidance behaviour are not uncommon.
Once people have begun to move toward acceptance of the seemingly inevitable, they may begin to experience some depression. People may become lethargic and lose motivation and initiative. Unfortunately, this frequently results in reduced communication and interaction at the very time in the overall change process that increases in effort, communication and interaction are needed.
Finally, people move into the phase of acceptance. Negative acceptance results in a state of resignation. "I guess we are stuck with this new system. We will have to learn to get around it." Positive acceptance results in people perceiving a new possibility. "It was hard to get used to this new system, but now I can see the potential benefits."
Please do not think of this model of our process of adjusting to change as suggesting that these phases are linear or unequivocal. People can skip stages, move forward and backward through them, and be in several simultaneously. Like all models, this one is useful only as an aid to our thinking. The value of the model is that it lets us know what to expect when people have to adjust to significant change. If we know what to expect, we are less surprised when we actually see it, and we may be able to plan for how we can best deal with it.
Emotions at work
Implementing significant innovation and organisational change will lead
inevitably to emotional reactions. There are five emotions of which managers
should be aware at work: fear, anger, grief, jealously and joy. Each of
these emotions has a natural and healthy side, as well as a distorted side
that can lead to problems when trying to implement innovation and technical
change.
Fear. Naturally, as young children we all have a fear of heights and loud noises. These fears protect us from hurting ourselves. When naturally expressed, these fears show up as a scream or as a reluctance to do certain things. Usually, this is a good thing. Distorted fear, however, lives for many as anxiety, phobia, panic and/or dread. As a manager you should be aware of the negative consequences of unresolved and unacknowledged fear at work. Fear is one of the greatest obstacle to honesty. Most of us expect accurate information from others at work. Unfortunately, we will not get it if the people with whom we work are afraid of the consequences of that information. Another organisational problem related to fear occurs when people invest in ridged belief systems out of fear. If you need to mobilise change and foster a climate that values diversity and innovation, you do not want people digging in their heals and holding on to their safe, pre-existing belief systems. You want people to trust, to be able to let go of the past and to embrace new ways of thinking and doing business.
Anger. Although it may seem counter-intuitive at first, anger can be a great asset at work. Natural anger is an effective energiser and motivator. When we are angry we make change happen. On the down-side, dysfunctional anger shows up as unfocused rage, resentment, violence or, at worse, apathy. As a manager you need to realise that unresolved anger leads to blocked listening, to covert and overt aggression and to resistance to effort and change. If you are interested in promoting co-operation, team-work and the implementation of change, you do not want people walking around blocking your efforts because they are angry at something that happened in the past.
Grief. In the business world, we have all experienced some loss and significant change recently. We have been downsized, outsourced, re-engineered and cost-cut to death. When we experience loss, whether it be the death of a loved-one or significant change at work, a normal emotional response is to grieve. Grief helps us to resolve our losses. Grief helps us come to grips with change. Grief may be expressed in tears or in telling the "story" of the loss or changes. This process helps us to come to terms with the new circumstances. If not adequately processed, distorted grief shows up as feelings of isolation, depression, self-pity and helplessness. Unresolved grief at work leads to reductions in effort and communication attempts, and may lead to perceptions of being alone and unsupported.
Jealousy. Jealousy is an interesting emotion. Most people find it hard at first to think of jealousy as having any positive side at all. Positive jealously is expressed as the desire to model and to copy others. It causes us to aspire to do more and to do better. In this way, functional jealously promotes learning, growth and the acquisition of new behaviours and skills. Of course, the more familiar distorted jealousy shows up as possessiveness, spite, envy and/or unthinking judgmentalism. At work, dysfunctional jealousy calls forth prejudice and promotes empire-building and back-stabbing.
Joy. Finally, the emotion of joy may be expressed as playfulness, spontaneity, laughter or just feeling good. Some of us think of this as love and unconditional acceptance. This emotion helps us to learn and to grow. It provides energy and vitality in life. With unconditional acceptance and love in our lives we learn that we are valued and can develop a good sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. Without love and unconditional acceptance in our lives, we become needy, demanding and dependent. We develop low self-esteem and low-levels of self-confidence. At work this inhibits creativity, innovation, change, energy and communication. It becomes not OK to be ourselves. It becomes unsafe to explore, to challenge, to risk and to get involved. This all leads to low levels of motivation and performance.
The expression of emotions at work. There are many seemingly good reasons why we do not express emotions at work. We are expected to be "nice" and to be "polite". We are taught to keep a stiff upper lip and to maintain the facade. We think we should not talk about or express emotions as that is a sign of weakness and instability. As children we are told to be a brave little boy and not cry, or to be a good little girl and act like a man. In other words, emotional expression, openness and honesty have been conditioned out of us.
As much as we might sometimes like to express our emotions at work, this is frequently not possible. It is frequently not appropriate or functional to break-down crying or to start screaming at your counter-part in a negotiation, or your competitor for scarce resources, if you are upset and angry because that person has out manoeuvred you. However, unless that emotional charge is processed at some point when it is more appropriate, longer-term relations between the parties, and thus the larger system will suffer, and the individual's personal health will inevitably pay some price as well.
Fortunately, there is something simple that managers can do to help foster a more functional emotional climate at work. Talk about feelings. Allow them to exist at work. Emotions are normal and their expression is actually healthy. If you can not talk about something, you can not fix it.
