Thought for the week: Change... its not my problem... or is it!

by Richard Townsend, Corporate Learning Consultant
http://www.orglearn.org

The new world is becoming a worrying and scary place for many employees. A large proportion of old economy workers who rely on outdated competencies are finding themselves out in the chilly land of unemployment at a much younger age. Mergers, acquisitions and redundancies are on the increase. In an attempt to maintain the status quo many seek ways to resist change in their organizations. This resistance of course weakens their company and creates difficulties as modern organizations must aim more accurately at an ever-changing marketplace. The inevitable outcome is that rather than managing change in a gradual and positive fashion these same people often end up at the sudden and violent end of a takeover and are forced to make radical changes in a hostile environment.

Resistance to change in a vain attempt to protect what has usually already gone is not a new phenomenon. Those who do not share the popular (and increasingly powerful) vision of the future are starting to fight the world’s current and inevitable direction, much as many ‘scared’ generations of resistors have done throughout history. More than at any time in the past we are seeing the demise of inept, slow moving, old style governments, corporations and associations. All these bodies can no longer serve or satisfy what is becoming a largely disenfranchised population of voters, an increasingly ignored proportion of customers and a philosophically opposed group of potential new members.

Subtle worker and management resistance by attempting to maintain hierarchical or ‘national’ management practices combined with outdated human resource practices is leading many companies to a their demise. To use but a few examples, Japanese auto companies (past heroes) that have not embraced change are increasingly being taken over by those who will. Inept Taiwanese old style banks are up for sale to foreign investors. Many traditional Thai (supposedly politically connected) companies are grinding to a halt and the entire country is suffering as a result. The Euro bounces along in a world economy-threatening fashion as people realize that trying to get such a large number of nationalistic old world European governments to cooperate will be an almost impossible task. More obvious resistance can be observed as crowds gather when world trade and banking institutions meet to discuss the future of ‘the global village’ and futile civil unrest results in the name of halting the evil of globalisation.

So... where should we perhaps stand in this minefield of turmoil? Will we be opting-in to the future, or opting-out for the past? If you’re taking a trip down memory lane, or looking for ways to re-live the good old days, ask yourself: what ever did happen to that flat earth society? The growing resistance I suggest is futile! How many manual ledger keepers, people that use typewriters, skilled metal workers or for that matter floor traders do you see about you? I can still remember seeing a demonstration of a prototype automatic teller machine and watching fascinated young tellers as they looked at it in awe and wondered what it all meant.

We all resist or at least try to deny change; we all tend to like the old ways of doing things and the comfort zone we have created. Rubbish Richard you may think and you could be saying to yourself: many of us embrace change, including our staff; we are part of the future. Try this game (source unknown) at your next meeting, just for fun. Ask your staff to face each other in pairs and look closely at their partner. Then tell them to turn away and secretly change three things about their appearance. They will do things like move their pens, take off their watch, undo their tie, but leave the changes to their own imagination. Then have them face each other again and have them tell each other what has changed about their partner. They will proudly boast about a three out of three result and you should congratulate them for their astute observations. Say nothing more except ask them all to sit down in their regular place (I bet most sit in the same seat each meeting). Now watch and be amazed, I guarantee ninety-nine percent will re-adjust their appearance back to they way it was before the game started. Then ask yourself, are we really breeding a staff compliment that accepts change that can take us into the future, or are they just telling us what we hope to hear?

So what do we do? Read next week’s bulletin...

Worth a thought and a quick test?

To contact Ric mailto: [email protected]