Pushing Through Discomfort of Change
Have you ever tried to do something radically different in your personal life and realize just how hard it is? Examples of such changes… going from full-fledged meat eater to vegan. Going from taking a walk a few times a week to running a marathon. Speaking to a team of five to being a keynote speaker to 500. If you’ve ever tried a big change in your life, something you’ve not done before then you know how hard that process can be. I mean if you’re a fully grown adult with decades of practice doing things a particular way and you’ve gotten pretty comfortable in your habits and practices - what you eat, how you exercise or don’t, how you communicate, how you navigate conflict, what you wear, etc. Well, organizations like human beings have practices of operations that unless your organization is a start-up have helped the organization to exist and survived over many years of existing through the practice of doing things - culturally, operationally, and structurally a particular way. Sure there may have been small tweaks to the system here or there, but for the most part, organizations sustain themselves by maintaining the systems and patterns that define them. And just like human beings, when we introduce a new change into the system, we are upsetting the state of comfort.
Let’s use the analogy of changing from a casual walker a few times a week to running a marathon. You can’t just wake up one day and decide I’m going to go from a leisurely pace walk to running 26 miles. Well, you could but chances are you’d a) not make it the 26 miles and b) have a lot of aches and pains at the end. Instead, you begin that transition from walker to runner by consulting with someone who has experience running a marathon. You develop a training program which could take many months. You upgrade your walking shoes to running shoes. Maybe you change your course from a flat sidewalk to a city-run to get a feel for a marathon route. And likely there is discomfort when you first start running that requires you to stretch some different muscles, muscles you NEVER had to use when you were walking. This is what it looks like to institute significant change in an organization. Particularly if that change is about something the organization has never done or experienced before. There was the practiced and comfortable place that existed before the change and there is the uncomfortable place that exists post the change. It is 100% a shock to the system and the majority of people who experience the change would rather stay in their comfort zone. So how do you get people to shift out of the comfort of a leisurely walk to preparing for the gruel of a marathon? Here are a few tips using our walk-to-marathon analogy.
Survey the Course. Take your time to understand what and who are the barriers and accelerators to the change. Who is prone to injury? Who needs an assist or accommodation? Who is already well-conditioned? Do we have the right equipment [skills, systems, know-how]? Do we need to consult an expert?
Create a Map. Set some parameters for the journey. What’s our timeline? How long will it take to be ready enough? Who are the pace-setters? How will we sustain energy through the process? Do we have alternate routes? What is the reward on the other side of the finish line?
Set the Conditions. What’s the weather like? [Tip: Turn up the heat just enough to get people uncomfortable to move but not so much that they fall out from heat exhaustion] What’s the winning time? [outcomes] and Who judges [decides]?
Stretch breaks. Make plenty of time during the transition of change period to reflect on the muscles the organization and team members are building collectively. Talk about what’s working. What’s not? Celebrate the milestones and each mile marker along the route to the finish line.
To learn more about managing change strategies and leading through the discomfort. Check out our upcoming workshop series, Transformative Leadership Workshop, and Early Bird registration prices through December.
