Managing Change

I am one of those nerds who loves (most) change. Short of devastating changes that alter our family dynamics (early death of my father for instance), I thrive in a fast-paced environment and embrace change. Most people are not this way. Managing through company change, encouraging behavior or attitude change, or simply guiding habits to support career goals requires first and foremost trust, empathy, and integrity.

Types of Change

Different types of change require different approaches.

Acute Change

There are times when change has to be immediate to respond to an acute situation. For example, an acute diagnosis of autoimmune disease requires radical and immediate change. This can sometimes be a "cold turkey" process, or much larger changes in a shorter-term chain of change to lead to a final output.

Long-term Change

Much easier to implement than acute change, long-term change allows for setting smaller goals towards a larger achievement. Let's think about entering sales calls in Salesforce. It doesn't sound like a difficult ask, but there are steps to take to make this a routine. Achieving each smaller habit change over the course of a quarter, suddenly the output is as expected and friction between employee and supervisors is lessened or eliminated. The key to this type of change is also expecting and planning for reverting to original behavior. Draw a line in the sand so that you recognize it once you cross it!

Behavior Change

Behavior change requires that you first diagnose the true root cause, otherwise we are just treating symptoms of the cause. This requires trust, empathy, and integrity from both parties, but done strategically, can be very effective. I love the elephant and rider analogy for behavior change: shape the path, motivate the elephant, and direct the rider.

Action triggers can also be implemented to more quickly affect the behavior change.

Attitude Change

"What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity"

Knowing what motivates a person combined with "rallying the herd" can create attitude change. Once the root cause is determined, changing your perception or frame of reference can forever alter your attitude. When processes or goals are implemented with a high degree of complexity or stringent guardrails, especially among entrepreneurial thinkers, one of three things can breed:

1) apathy

2) resistance

3) quitting.

Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change.

-Ray Dalio, Principles

Case Example 1: Behavior Change

When I was teaching middle school science (back in the late 1900s :) , a student diagnosed with ADHD was constantly standing up and sitting down and fidgeting to the point of distraction for the rest of the class. He kept apologizing and felt terrible for his behavior. One day after class I asked Wesley to chat with me for a few seconds, and he apologized profusely on his way to my desk. I explained he doesn't need to apologize, but we needed to change his environment. I moved his to the back of the classroom where he could stand up, sit down, whatever he needed to do in order to focus on learning. Worked like a charm!