Where does the fear of change come from?
The fear of change comes from our natural suspicion of the unknown or of things we don’t understand. As youngsters we develop techniques to protect ourselves and over time we develop our “success formula”. This formula comprises standards of behaviour or perspectives on situations that we learn will give us our desired optimum result. To be involved in a change process we need to walk away from our own success and do something unfamiliar, a very onerous task. However the risk of not being able to change in a time when everything around us is moving and shifting will lead us to even bigger problems in the future.
As there are no signposts, road rules or speed limits in the infinite unknown and the risks seem to be enormous, how can we cope with (if not drive out) the fear? The old cliché that “familiarity breeds contempt” is a good place to start. The military uses this principle to train troops and it obviously works. The more we practice the skill of how to cope in an unfamiliar or fearful situation, the better chance we have of making our response to it automatic. If you need to think about what to do you will be lost. Example; try to hit a tennis ball while consciously thinking about it… you can’t, for success, it has to be a reaction. Think of the unknowns, speed, curvature, trajectory, spin, bounce, deceleration rate, angle of deflection, racquet speed, string tension etc etc… all unknowns. How do the best performers cope with or in fact thrive with all these unknowns… practice, practice, practice. So what do we need to do, place ourselves in unfamiliar situations, learn from the failures and overcome our inability to function in the unknown.
MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE COMES FROM SUCCESSFULLY WORKING WITH HALF-BAKED IDEAS AND MAKING RISKY, FORWARD LOOKING DECISIONS.
Overcoming the fear of change!
Mental practice, practice, practice… A tip, under stress we are most likely not to ‘be all we can be’, so we must learn to react automatically based on an ingrained ritual of behaviour. Great news, practice can (at least at the beginning) be ‘mental’, as our subconscious can’t differentiate between imagined and real experiences. Reactions are subconscious so we can and should start by imagining ourselves doing well in unfamiliar situations to help our subconscious mind learn to cope with stress.
Another major issue is honesty. An honest approach will always help to reduce fear. Example; in the 2000 US presidential elections both candidates talked openly about embarrassing issues, personal shortcomings and past indiscretions. Why… to remove the fear of being exposed. They where then seen I suggest by the voting public as men of integrity. We need to own up to our personal shortcomings and difficulties if we are to free ourselves of our personal guilt over our imperfect past. If anyone has a perfect past I suggest you head for Rome immediately, there’s someone there that wants to meet you. This honesty needs to extend to our feelings as well as our actions. A willingness to express our feelings about a situation should not be that hard. As managers we are trained to constantly express our feelings regarding the performance of those we lead. Why not manage upward and start to express our feelings about situations created by those we follow. Remember though being judgemental or critical will evoke a natural and often distasteful result and is to be avoided. We are however all entitled to have feelings about situations. Anyone who is a manager and has had training in giving feedback (a critical management competence) knows the value of this instinctively. If you work in a place where feelings are discouraged, all the change management techniques in the world will not help and you should make the ultimate change… seek employment elsewhere. Why… because your organization is probably on the way out.
‘SOMETIMES BEING TIRED, SCARED, DE-MOTIVATED OR DISAPPOINTED IS A NATURAL PART OF THE REALITY OF WORK, WE JUST NEED TO ADMIT IT’. (author unknown)
Ref: Why it matters, by Joe Flower, http://www.well.com/user/bbear/change16.html
