Change is as Change Does - Ten Truths of Change
"Change just isn't what it used to be" lamented Warwick, the CEO of an international engineering firm, during one of my recent Futures seminars.
Warwick, like most senior executives, has survived decades of change within the corporate world. Change is not new, especially in a young growing economy like Australia's.
So why the despair about change?
Because the very nature of change in our world is now different. Not only faster, not only deeper, not only broader - but different.
If we are to choose the futures we want for ourselves, our families, and our businesses, then we had better learn to understand these differences, and fast.
Change is not going to wait for us to catch up. Ignoring change will not make it go away and will only make us feel more fearful of it.
Many myths and mysteries, or Old Truths, continue to blur our sight when trying to see what is happening around us in our worlds.
Old truths include the classic (as mentioned in my previous article): If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The new truth would say: It is always broke, keep fixing it. Nothing can remain the same and survive. Constant review and restructuring must become a standard management practice for a healthy future.
Other old truths include:
History repeats itself. Everything is constantly changing; nothing can repeat itself. Do not be fooled by the similarities of circumstances; it is the differences that are significant.
Patience is its own reward. Fine if you are waiting for a bus, but not if you want to travel in the fast lane. Act now. Make it happen. Wait for no one.
The dollar is almighty. Power has always been almighty and money used to buy power. Knowledge is becoming the base of power, so accessing and processing knowledge replaces capital as the source of wealth in the future.
The end justifies the means. There is no end, no single destination, only travelling toward our ever-changing goals. The means of travelling determines the quality of your endeavour and the quality of your survival.
Just do the best of what you did today and tomorrow will take care of itself. What worked well today is unlikely to work well tomorrow because tomorrow will be so different. While working today, be planning how to change that for tomorrow. Pro-act for tomorrow's needs; reacting will be too late to maintain excellence.
Truths used to be relevant for a long time and evolved so gradually that we never became aware when they actually became new truths.
So what new truths are helpful to us for knowing and shaping our world?
The following Ten Truths of Change are not an exhaustive list, but they do emphasise how change is not what it "used to be."
The Ten Truths of Change
1. Change always has occurred and always will occur, only faster.
This first truth has been around for centuries. The new bit, though, is that the speed of change will continue to increase. There is unlikely to be a decrease , or even a levelling off, in the rate of change over the next 50 years.
If you are uncomfortable with the speed, you can sit out the dance in the hope that the music will slow down to a familiar beat. It won't. Better learn the new steps to the new rhythms of the business world and become a dancer as quickly as possible.
2. Change happens, with or without your cooperation.
You cannot prevent change from happening. No one ever could. But now that the impact of change is so huge, we often feel too overwhelmed and powerless to control what occurs.
Yet resistance is useless; change is here forever. So you might as well accept it as a fact of everyday life. Learn to understand the processes of change so you can use them to make your desirable future.
If you do not, the processes of change will control you and your entire future - personal and professional.
3. Big Changes are just lots of little changes.
Changes occur on a continuum of time. The digital watch did not suddenly become invented in 1971. It is a (relatively) recent outcome of the evolutionary development of watches since the first watch was produced in Germany in 1504.
The R&D leading to the digital watch took over 250 years. It required many developments from fields other than time keeping, such as microchip, electronics, and LCD technologies. We see these innovations only when they hit the marketplace. So to most of us, the digital watch appeared "suddenly in 1971".
Similarly, the microwave oven has existed since the early 1940s. When did you first become aware of it? Only when it was mass marketed for the home user in the early 1980s.
When you are confronted by an apparently big change, break it into smaller bits of change. You will be less overwhelmed, less fearful of its outcomes, and much more able to use the bits in a way beneficial to you and your goals.
Even the largest corporate merger or restructuring is made up of small steps which will be different among the various activity areas. Discover the steps that join together lead to the big reorganisation in your management vicinity. Fears and immobilisation will disappear when you understand how the big picture is put together.
Small is beautiful and from now on, necessary. Another updated old truth, whereas the following seven truths of change are newer and perhaps more unfamiliar to senior management.
4. Change is neither right nor wrong.
Change just is. We often put a positive or negative value on change, usually on our perceived consequences of the change. The change itself is value free. So what? you ask. Read on.
5. How change affects you is your singular responsibility.
While change occurs with or without your cooperation, how that change impacts on you is your (and no one else's) responsibility. There is no "Them" and "Us" division of who is responsible for how you are affected by any change.
Although highly (over?) governed by paternalistic attitudes from government and powerful business interests for 150 years, Australians are recognising that individual responsibility is necessary for a guaranteed quality of life in an advanced economy.
You must decide what you want, you must act to make it happen, and you must be responsible for every aspect of doing so.
Do not blame anyone else if you are not coping with change; take action to learn how to cope. No one else can do it for you.
6. How you react to change is your choice.
Not only are you responsible for the impact of change on yourself, but you also have a choice about how you react in any situation of change. Always.
You can react positively or negatively. You can say: "Oh no! not another reorganisation of the department; I haven't adjusted to the last turmoil yet!"
Or you can say: "Well, even though we just had a major reorganisation, we obviously can improve still further; I look forward to learning how the new structure will help me (and my colleagues) to reach our goals faster, more easily, and to the highest standards."
You can react by embracing the change or you can attempt to ignore the change. You can explore the possible outcomes of the change and choose what works best for you, or you can cower passively and wait for decisions and direction from other interests. These other interests are likely to have a different desirable future than yours.
Choosing passivity does not remove your responsibility. Doing nothing is an active choice and you remain responsible for whatever happens to you. As I am known to repeat at every opportunity, the future is for those who show up! Take control of your life and its future.
7. You choose the direction of your change.
Just as you choose how you react to change, you also determine how you then change. No person, organisation, or system makes you change in any particular direction. You decide this, whether consciously or not.
Better, then, to become aware of all your options so you can choose what is best for you. Your needs will never totally coincide with mine or those of anyone else, including your workmates, your family, your friends, and so on.
Ironically, it is usually those emotionally closest and most caring to us who do not want us to change. They prefer you the way they know you and fear the unknown way you might become.
But as discussed above, you and you alone are responsible for choosing what and how change affects your life. It is up to you to work out what compromises you are prepared to make to cooperate and coexist with others. They are not forcing you to choose one way or another. They, therefore, cannot be responsible for your choices.
Similarly, you have no right or responsibility to pressure others into choosing a particular direction of change. Your thoughts and knowledge on how you see others' choices may be welcome, but their view of the world is not identical to yours. Their preferred choice may not be yours.
8. Your change is not my change.
Even though you may be sharing one corporate environment going through an obvious change (for example, the restructuring of a company), your choices are not necessarily your colleagues' choices.
The variables affecting you are not identical to the variables affecting them. Your life experience, your values, your attitudes, your likes and dislikes add up to a unique presence in this world. Your world cannot be identical to my world; your change is not my change.
Recognise the benefit to being different rather than the fear of difference that pervades so much of our culture in Australia. Difference ensures more options for more people for more of the time. Difference allows greater pursuit of excellence and greater fulfilment of our individual potential as thriving healthy contributing citizens.
9. The more our changes are mutually beneficial, the greater will be the outcomes.
Given that your change is not my change, and that how change impacts you and me may be quite different, there is much to be applauded for encouraging changes that are of benefit to each other.
Create the win-win response to change. Choose the direction that not only furthers you toward your goals, but at the same time assists others to reach their specific goals.
Timing, in particular, can play a big part in achieving the best outcomes. You may elect to give a colleague's goal higher priority than yours because you know that the ultimate benefit to you later will be greater.
For example, you may decide to defer the timing of your long service leave in a colleague's favour because you believe their knowledge gained on long service leave will enhance your ability to achieve what you want, upon their return to the workplace.
Research into how human dynamics and systems work best is disclosing that the gains from joint efforts far exceed the sum of the individual efforts. The scientific principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts is now a fact of human enideavour.
Hence the crucial importance for your organisation to have one clear vision and well defined shared goals, if it is to excel into the future. Everyone truly working as a united team will achieve much more than the same people working towards the same goals, but as separate individuals.
10. The more you welcome change, the greater will by your achievements.
Your Big A Attitude toward change predetermines how well you will thrive in the corporate world of constant change. No matter how many other attributes are the same, the single attribute that separates the modest achievers from the high achievers is their attitude toward change.
Welcome change as a source of positive growth, of new opportunities, of unknown benefits, of excitement and pleasures to come.
Sure, some of the challenges may be startling, even slowing you down for a second. But challenges are there to help you develop yourself and your goals. To help you excel.
Associate with people who share your positive outlook on change. Choose to work with like-minded colleagues, and avoid the others.
For just as achievements are much greater when mutually beneficial changes occur, the converse is also true. Your achievements will be diminished by the impact of negative attitudes in your environment. Minimise the damage that can be done to your excelling by minimising the interaction with those people who fear change.
As George Bernard Shaw wrote many decades ago : Progress without change is impossible; and those cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Welcome, embrace, live change. Change is as change does.
Business Directions 1 Dec 1994
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