Change Happens, Love it or Hate it

Change affects all of us and it comes in many shapes and sizes. Some of it is unwelcome and destructive. Some of it is invited and positive. It is a thing in and of itself, sometimes beyond our control but often within our capacity to shape and influence.

Change Management is the structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organisations from a current state to a desired future state in a way that minimises disruption and maximises adoption. At its heart, it recognises a simple truth: that implementing a change technically is the easy part (that part that is covered by Project Management techniques), but getting people to actually embrace and sustain it is the hard part.

It is common when the change is perceived to be bad to adopt the position, “I don’t like change”, but it is dangerous to do so as a default position with all change. Change per se is not the culprit. It isn’t Marmite®, a commodity that you either like or loathe. It is transport, movement, momentum and sometimes growth. Change, well-conceived and well implemented is a force for good.

Not all change is good, of course. And that is what gives it its bad name. But many change initiatives underperform not because the change itself was wrong, but because of poor communication, inadequate training, lack of visible leadership, underestimating resistance, failing to think through consequences in advance (often referred to as ‘unforeseen consequences’, but wholly predictable), or declaring victory too early.

And it’s easy to dismiss change when the benefits and rationale are not clear. The notion of change for change’s sake gets a bad press because it is seen as creating unnecessary turmoil. ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’. And yet history is littered with examples where people have introduced new ideas and processes that changed the way we do things for the better, even though the ‘old way’ seemed perfectly adequate at the time. The old rotary dials on plug-in telephones were fine when your phone number was Wincle 222 (my in-laws’ number in the 70’s), but time stealers if still in operation for eleven-digit numbers with loads of eights and nines. The only reason you would now wish to have rotary telephone is for its beautiful design features.

Sometimes people’s apparent fear or dislike of change pushes them into a reverse gear. I am as guilty of that as anyone. It is human nature to hark back to the past. Nostalgia is so popular it has spawned a whole industry which seeks to revive the best bits of our history that have faded with the march of time. Old vintage clothes, the notion of common decency and neighbourliness, vinyl records, classic cars, etc.  I can live with that. But many things deserve to be consigned to history, never to be repeated: racism, segregation, misogyny, nationalism, tuberculosis, child poverty. And yet, we are seeing a resurgence of these things: evolution in reverse. We need to be careful what we wish for when we seek to go backwards.

Being fearful of change is a fool’s game, but being alert to change is not. We have more agency with change than we often realise and can help to alleviate its negative impact whilst giving it the best chance of making a positive contribution. Being neutral about, or antagonistic to progressive change is unhelpful. We need to get involved, direct it, foresee its consequences, and work together to ensure that the change delivers the outcomes it was designed for, for everyone.  

Change will happen with or without us. Bad actors will force change upon us. People will promise the earth from change whilst secretly destroying it. So, we need to be vigilant and engaged. But what we must not do is see change itself as our enemy.