The Missing Ingredient in Organizational Change Management E91
April 25, 2023
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This blog is going to be what I call a corporate edition. I want to connect what I am doing now with my experience and knowledge from my previous corporate career. And I got the idea for this blog a week ago after having a catch-up with my former boss. It made me reflect on what I know now about change in ourselves and how it’s the most important thing to understand if we want to change our life.
But this is not something that I’ve ever learned when I was still working in companies – even though we always went through a lot of change. So I want to talk about that missing ingredient of organizational change management. And if companies would integrate this or provide this to their employees, it would resolve so many challenges and problems that you can face when you try to change an organization or a culture. So let’s dive into this topic!
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So let me start by sharing that I have worked on several change projects in my last 3 positions which spanned over 7 years. I’m certified in one of the major change management modalities called PROSCI with the ADKAR model and afterwards applied this model to 2 huge projects. One was a restructuring of a department and with that, the ways of working and systems were changed significantly. And the other one was creating and implementing a new management system for a global team.
In both of these projects, I was responsible for the change management part so I got great experience in this area. And because of that, I know how important change management is when a company is making a significant change in their business, in their structure, or their ways of working.
Did change management work for me in the past?
And on reflection did it always work or went well? That’s relative. Obviously, the change always happened and was implemented, but the pain, the disruption, not just to the business but to people’s relationships, to their confidence, to their inner peace was so high.
And me being part of the change makers, the project team that implemented the change, I experienced how much people hurt, how much they hated the change and even us for implementing it. I have seen it in people’s eyes, in their behaviours, and their words. It still breaks my heart to think back. So part of me always wondered if this is not possible to be easier and for people to feel differently when something big had to change.
So during the last years of my corporate career, I was managing change and now in my own business, I teach people how to change. Amazing, right? So now that I am helping people to learn how to change from the inside out, I see that THIS is the missing ingredient in organizational change management: Helping people to learn how to change themselves.
The missing ingredient of change management
Never in my time working for companies was I taught how to change myself – to work along with the change that was happening around me. Or how to self-regulate when something is changing in my job, in the people I work with or potentially even leaving the organization.
Looking back at it now, when changes happened in my company it was always about accepting the change more so from the outside. My experience was that I was asked to change my ways of working, change the relationships or the people that I worked with, change the use of systems, and learn new systems. So it was all an ask of accepting the change but without knowing how to change internally or how to deal with the inner turmoil that this change might have triggered.
And yes, change management models or processes help with all of these process, structure and team aspects to tell a powerful and inspiring story and help employees to understand the reasons and benefits of that change. But what these models don’t help with is the emotions that people go through when a big change is happening in their jobs.
Helping people to manage their emotions during this change
What happens quite often is that people become victims of the change or that’s how it feels for them. They feel powerless, frustrated, anxious, fearful, possibly even angry, betrayed or disappointed. And never in my 20 years of my corporate career have I received training on how to truly manage my emotions. Have you? I assume most of you didn’t – but if you did, kudos to your organization.
I spoke about my experience with burnout before and how this was my pivotal moment when I started to learn about change from the inside. So when I came back to work after my burnout and began to implement some of these internal changes, I started seeing how people struggled with the changes happening and why they struggled.
People struggle with changes on the outside, but their struggle comes from the inside
I was suddenly on the outside and did not experience change happening in my company as I did before. And the reason was that I knew what was happening with all these thoughts and emotions about the situation and I knew how to change them, and how to self-regulate. So being suddenly on the outside, helped me to observe what was happening to my colleagues and what made them struggle so much.
And to be honest, some of them did not even realize that they were struggling as this state of resistance just became their normal way of being. Which made me even sadder.
And what happens to employees that really struggling with changes? They get left behind and either they leave because they feel that they are not performing well enough or are not valued anymore – or they are asked to leave.
Capable employees being wrongly left behind during a change
I have a whole new viewpoint on this now. They are still capable humans that can change and adapt but they are stuck in fear, in survival, they are scared and if they can be helped to understand that and provided with the tools to move out of this survival stage, they can go back into a safe space where they can grow and develop like other employees.
When I got better and my perspectives to work and myself shifted big time, I always thought how cool would it be if everyone could make that change and feel much better about themselves, about their work and about things changing constantly.
Because the only constant in this world is change. So how can I bring what I learned and taught myself into companies and help all employees to realize that they are not victims but that they are creators of their life?
How I discovered the answer to the missing ingredient
So when I left my corporate career, I know it sounds crazy, but one week later I found the answer to my question. I actually found the training that in 2 days helps everyone to learn what I learned over months and months. This program teaches everything you need to understand about yourself, your brain, your nervous system and your emotional reactions to be able to deal with any change happening to you and for you to consciously and proactively change anything you want in your life. After 2 days you have all the tools you need to rewire your brain, and your subconscious programs and let go of hardwired emotional reactions you have been practising for decades.
So reflect on this. Are you giving your employees and direct reports the tools to help change themselves so they can easily and comfortably manage themselves through any change happening around them?
You or your organization cannot change an individual on the inside – they have to learn how to do it themselves. If humans learn how to change and they change from the inside out, that’s when you are actually able to shift a culture.
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So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!
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