Addressing Resistance to Change

As a career consultant for the past 16 years, I listen to some clients express their desire for a “secure’ job with a “secure” organization. But an organization that doesn’t change is not going to survive, and there is no job security in the workplace.

There are three drivers of change in organizations: People, Technology and Information. These drivers constantly impact each other.

When your main motivator is to find a job with a good salary and benefits with an organization that will take care of you, you are not focusing on what you need to compete in today’s job market. It is not the organization’s role to take care of you; it is your role to help grow the organization, no matter what your functional area. Organizations do not exist to take care of employees. This is a critical lesson is today’s tight job market.

In order to survive in an organization experiencing change, you need to change with the pace of the organization. Individual resistance to change can sideline your career.

What you can do:

1. Get comfortable with change and accept it as new challenge.

2. Understand that the company will not make things easier for you, or relieve your stress.

3. Accept the change and move on. Whining and self-pity will only make your job more difficult.

4. Figure out how the game has changed and how priorities have shifted. Decide which aspects of your job requite your immediate focus.

5. Remember that low-stress organizations don’t exist. If they seem low stress it is only a temporary situation.

6. Don’t expend energy trying to influence matters that are beyond your influence. If they wanted your opinion, they would have asked for it.

7. Keep up with the pace of change.

8. Re-engineer your job and get rid of expendable activities.

9. Put your faith in action and maximize your productivity.

10. “Pick battles big enough to matter and small enough to win.”
Jonathan Kozol

11. Learn to live with and appreciate uncertainty.

12. Stretch yourself to learn new skills and take on new assignments
New skills and accomplishments are resume builders. The road to a continuous, uninterrupted work history is having updated, marketable skills.

13. Practice extreme self-care.
Exercise, meditate, connect with nature, sleep more, eat nutritious food, play, simplify your life.

I challenge everyone to consider the changes you are experiencing in your job and organization, and identify one thing you can do differently that will make a difference.

Debbie Brown