What is Change and Why Does it Bother Us So Much? - Why Do We Act Like Turkeys Voting For Xmas?

What is change? Is it a fact of life to be welcomed - or something that occurs from time to time and disturbs our equanimity and is to be resisted?

When we regard life as fixed and static - we tend to think of it in terms of MY life, MY job, MY business, and all nicely packaged up with clear boundaries defining my own personal inner "map of reality" i.e. the process of cognition by which we record, categorise and interpret our life experience.

In this perspective things are seen as separate and in stasis, time proceeds in a linear manner from past to future, and the human experience from this perspective is one of duality and separation.

In other words, there is "me here" and the world "out there". So the question "what is change?" is answered and illustrated by events like recessions - things that I don't like and that happen to me.

Morpheus and Neo - hardwired settings

In case you're beginning to think that this is starting to sound like a conversation between Morpheus and Neo in "The Matrix" - it does matter because this is how we as human beings are hardwired to behave.

This is the "default setting" - and much of what we do is motivated by this inbuilt need to keep things as they are - to preserve the boundaries around "my life" - to preserve my survival and my safety and my comfort.

This also matters because it goes straight to the root of all resistance to or acceptance of change - WIFM - "what's in it for me?".

Change as something to be avoided is also the default setting for most businesses

In other words - establish a business model that works and perpetuate it for as long as possible - with the same organisational motivations of survival, safety and comfort.

But the trouble with this business philosophy is that in the current climate, organisational processes, behaviours and cultures evolved for a fixed and static environment have a very limited effectiveness in the fluid reality that we are currently experiencing.

So, for business leaders and managers, what is the appropriate response to change?

Historically in times of recession it has been "slash and burn" on costs and streamline business processes to squeeze out ever greater efficiencies.

Do you recall the period after the last recession when Business Process Re-engineering was very popular? But the focus was always on the process and not the people - and getting "buy-in" was once described by a change agent friend of mine as "like trying to get a bunch of turkeys voting in favour of Christmas"!

Last time round the focus was all about getting large businesses to function with the efficiencies of small businesses and trying to create and put in place processes that would deliver those efficiencies [at whatever human cost].

Now as we start to emerge from the current recession, it's all about getting people in large businesses to think, feel and respond like people do in small businesses where the focus is all about people.

So now it all comes down to people as well as process - and that means processes that work for people.

So the question of: "what is change" evolves into: "what is change management and how can we succeed with it?"