It's OK If You Don't Like Change

You don’t have to like change.

Change is inevitable, inexorable, and intrusive.

Change can push you out of your current place of comfort into one of discomfort… it may be very very transient discomfort, but discomfort, nevertheless.

Discomfort around change transcends teams and hierarchies and education and learning styles, it digs deep into your heart and, for however long, makes you off kilter.

Communications and engagement aren’t a magic wand to wave that make people like change - we can help you understand change, but you don’t have to like it.

A new system that changes the shape of your day, or your job, may be a valuable addition to the productivity of your organisation but do you need to like it, to use it?

No.

Jim Collins in his book ‘Good to Great’ talks about having people ‘on the bus’ – if you’re not ‘on the bus’ then you’re not supporting the goals of the organisation and you should think about getting off the bus, or in other words “Don’t like it? Then leave.”

This over simplification can be jumped on by senior leaders who are heavily invested in the organisation both emotionally and financially (in the form of performance bonuses and stock options). They don’t always understand that the further down the chain you go that being ‘on the bus’ manifests itself in different ways.

Back in the dim and distant past I experienced the BBCs digital shift.

In radio we had been analogue since the day dot. I started my broadcast career using quarter inch tape and a razor blade and ended it with solid state recorders and digital editing.

When I saw how some of my colleagues reacted to the training on the new digital systems, I had a “Don’t like it? Then leave” moment.

Things were thrown, there were tears, and there was shouting, and I said to other colleagues who were on the digital bus with me “if they hate it that much why don’t they just leave?” obviously they couldn’t. They were BBC radio stalwarts, they built their identity around it, they were firmly sitting on the BBC Bus, but not the digital one.

They were on Jim Collins’ bus but hated where it had taken them.

They stayed, were good broadcasters, did their jobs, and did them well, but they hated the digital playout system… but there was no other option.

They got used to it but never liked it.

I have got used to the fact that my beard has gone white.

I do not like it.

Every now and again I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and I’m reminded of it, but what are the alternatives?

I can shave it off… but I’ll either look like a supermarket own brand Martin Clunes, or (because of my bald head and pale eyebrows) look like my neck is blowing a bubble.

I could dye my beard and go down the Chuck Norris, Noel Edmonds, or late John McAffee route of looking like a Bond villain trying to recapture their youth.

So, the status quo of not liking my white beard remains.

I dislike the other options more.

I’ve got used to it, but I certainly don’t like it.

The metrics for change communications need to be primarily functional - adoption rates, increased productivity, quicker resolutions – and secondarily around engagement and sentiment. They are both good indicators, but low sentiment may be down to a vast range of other factors (have a look at my video in the Brownian Motion of narrative) affecting the business.

As a leader you want your colleagues to like the things that you do, but sometimes the best you can hope for is that they get used to it instead.

Change is inevitable, inexorable, and intrusive… and you don’t have to like it.