“People who see change as a threat to the past reject new ideas and get left behind.
People who treat change as a challenge in the present embrace new ideas and adapt.
People who anticipate change as an opportunity for the future initiate new ideas and lead.”
—Adam Grant
When you read through these stances on change, where do you find yourself on your leadership journey? I want to offer a slightly gentler way of looking at the first concept - are you in the position of observing change as it moves past you? Are you seeing shifts in your environment and watching your feet plant firmly on the ground as you wonder if you can will them toward that first hesitant step?
Change can be hard. It is the unknown, the disruptive, the unpredictable. It can be uncomfortable, exhausting, and sometimes overwhelming. I could go on, but I'm sure you are already adding adjectives as you read through this list.
In the ADKAR change management model, the first step to change management is Awareness of the need for change. This can present a challenge since the gap between rejection and awareness can be a hard one to bridge, especially when the avoidance of our previous list makes a lot of sense to most of us.
If the word "change" brings up any of the words I identified earlier, and if you are curious about how to increase your awareness of what might be needed to bring about a shift in perspective, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions:
Is my stalled movement intentional or reactive?
Which questions have I asked the people moving toward the change I am rejecting?
Which questions have I asked myself about where I have decided to stay established?
Not all change should be accepted, and not all change should be avoided. The key as we learn to grow into the potential of discomfort is to understand how to check in - with ourselves, our environments, and our surrounding peers. When we learn to ask good questions, we offer ourselves the opportunity to hold decision behind our inaction, or bring a little more information into our scope of awareness as we prepare to take a shaky (or maybe confident!) step forward.