How to own change

Change is inevitable but it’s also something people and organisations find a tricky path to navigate. Here at Another Door we believe a new narrative is needed around the topic of change. We help organisations and their employees thrive through change.

Over the last four years we have focused on job loss and how to make it a good thing. But recently we have been talking to people about change at work, not losing their job, but the change all around them, and how they feel overwhelmed and anxious with the uncertainty.

Dealing with this is often the missing piece in transformation and change programmes in organisations. I’ m usually brought in as a consultant to develop the communication change programme, the focus is usually on leadership –messaging, sequencing, and visibility.

But who is helping people to understand their change story? How can they translate what is happening to them? And more importantly, how can they navigate the change successfully?

When people feel like they have more ownership they begin to feel more connected. Leading people through change is one thing, people leading themselves is the powerful missing piece where the two align.

Navigating change and transformation

You are working on your transformation plans, the processes, the systems, and the communications. It’ s an ever-growing list, and it’ s all important. But what about the bit that doesn ’t get much time, how are we actually going to take people with us on this journey?

We get the communications or HR team to create an engagement programme. Nice messages, uplifting films, and listening sessions. It’ s all great, but there is something missing.

Humans are individuals. We all react to change in different ways.

We all process information differently and need time to think.

How to move through a change experience

People need time to think, time to process. Not more comms, not more being talked at. Time to think.

You ’ll only get connection with organisation goals when people understand what it means to them personally.

Without this missing piece it's like throwing seeds on dried out soil. We can hope something might root and grow, but of course prepared ground enables the seed to grow much quicker.

We work with you to align this experience with your plans. We create workshops to embed change in a positive way, we facilitate onboarding for people, and we ’ll provide further coaching if that’ s needed.

Try working through these 5 simple questions.

1.) Acknowledge - the first step is acknowledging change, the scale of it for you, the impact, what it is.

Ask yourself ‘What is really going on here? How is this change manifesting in my life?

2.) Observe - the second step is observing your reactions, and how do you behave when change gets dialled up.

Ask yourself ‘How am I? How do I feel about all this? Why do I feel like this?’

3.) Process - the third step starts to look at how to understand, interpret it, make it meaningful to you.

Ask yourself ‘What does thismea n for me? What is the real impact?’

4.) Explore - the fourth step encourages you to open up to possibilities, to create ideas, and see opportunities.

Ask yourself ‘What is the opportunity? What is the ideal scenario that could happen through this?’

5.) Choose - the fifth step is about taking ownership. Knowing that you now own your response, and how to move through change. Ask yourself ‘How am I helping me achieve my goals? What small steps can I take today?

The experience is circular because you can use these questions every time change shows up. Each time you go through the process you ’ll discover different things. Your toolkit will grow and you ’ll learn how to navigate change in a way that works for you.

Download the Five Steps to owning change at work guide here

Five steps to owning change

We developed the five steps to owning change by looking at the best change management theory, recent change research, using behavioural change studies – and mapping what people say and what’ s on their mind when they go through change (this was part of our beta development).

The most important finding was creating space to think. Often change at work means heavier workloads, with fresh challenges and new ways of working. Without time to slow down and process this will be a breeding ground for unrest and resistance.

Working through your change story

We all have change stories running all the time. Sometimes they are dialled up and full volume, taking up valuable thinking space, sometimes they are quietly running in the background. When you are going through change at work it’ s essential to create time to think. It’ s too easy to default to busy diaries, back-to-back meetings.

This is about change in your life, it needs prioritising. Just ten minutes a day of thinking time without distraction can help you work through change better. Maybe over a coffee, an iced water, or a lunchtime sandwich. Staring out of a window or moving to a different room can help reset thinking.