Get Off The Well-Beaten Track!
At the moment I’m trying to stick to a new calendar system for emails and social media and it’s tough. I find myself reverting to old habits. Sound familiar? Have you ever tried to make a significant change in your life? As a leader, have you tried to implement a new process at work? How hard has it been?
So why is change so difficult? Why do we resist it? There can be a number of reasons:
it can make us feel like we’re losing control
the level of uncertainty makes us feel uncomfortable
we don’t want to be taken by surprise
we know it’s going to be hard work
there’s fear around not succeeding or experiencing a loss of competency
we feel threatened
Lots of very good reasons why when faced we change, some of us run the other way! Then there’s the neuroscience behind making a change. Neuroscience tells us that our brains are made up of a hundred billion neurons, and each one of these neurons stores and transmits information.
Every time you learn something new, these neurons change their connections with other neurons. All the separate bits of information needed to do a task or to think a certain way activate different areas of the brain, and once you do an activity over and over again, a new pathway is created through those neurons. Once your brain has created this neuron pathway, it's just easier to keep using that pathway. It's like a well-worn track.
This reminds me of our family trips to South Stradbroke Island on our boat when I was a young girl. We would head over there for the day to swim and fish. Dad would pull the boat up on South Straddie on the Broadwater side and drop anchor. We’d make our way to shore and then have to cross through the middle of the island to get to the surf side to fish.
There was a well-worn track to the beach from the Broadwater side to the beach side. It was an easy track with no obstacles. We would often take this track but sometimes we’d pull in further south and we’d have to take a different track over to the beach. A less used pathway, and boy, was it an adventure! You never quite knew what you were going to come across.
So as our leader, Dad would take the front position and make his way through first. There would be long grass, mud, low lying branches and lots of other obstacles in our way but Dad would keep leading us through it to get to our destination; the beach.
As a leader, it’s your job do the same when you’re implementing change. Remember to do the following:
Get Out in Front and Take the Lead.
As the leader, you have to face the obstacles front on. You also have to give directions. You have to make your people feel safe and know that they’re not alone, you are right there with them. You have to get amongst it. My dad would push his way through the long grass and give directions along the way “keep right up ahead”, “watch the mud here”.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.
You need to make sure that you keep taking the new path with your people over and over again. Otherwise, they're going to want to go back down to the easy track because that's the way they've always done it. So keep repeating to build the new pathway.
Be Realistic.
You need to remember that not everyone is going to be enthusiastic about the change and that’s ok. As a young girl I was always up for an adventure but mum not so much! You need to take everyone along for the ride.
Take Manageable Steps.
Watch your pace out in front. Don’t try to make too many changes all at once. Try to make it as comfortable as you can for everyone involved.
Keep the Vision Front of Mind.
You have to keep the vision (the why you making the change) in the front of people minds. Make the outcome clear and give people something to look forward to. I remember my Dad shouting out "Not too long to go now and we’ll have the beach all to our ourselves.” Make sure you keep people informed of their progress along the way.
Reward success.
When your people do make the change and get through the hard pathway, you need to reward them. For me, it was a can of Coke and a ham sandwich once we made it to the beach. (The simple things, right?)
Change can be hard and navigating a new pathway is tough, but it can be an adventure.
As a leader, you want to find new ground and discover better ways of working. If you always follow the same path, you’re always going to end up in the same place, with everyone else who has taken the easy way. Leadership is about finding a new path, it’s about creation and innovation. Leadership is making change that matters and creates better results for your clients and creates a better environment for your people.
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” (Socrates)
Happy leading,
Midja