Monday, July 11, 2005

On Change

Recently I worked with a group who had been experiencing a huge amount of change in their work environment. Changes in physical location, equipment, team membership to name the key ones. Yet when I had the group do a tick box checklist of all the changes they had personally experienced in the last year both in and out of work one man ticked only one box. On being asked how he managed only one tick in spite of so much change identified by everyone else he replied, “I only marked the change I didn’t like. If I like it I don’t regard it as a change”.

This is an interesting notion around change when for many of us our instant response is to regard change as a negative experience or as guaranteed to be stressful. I could say that change is just change and the only constant is that all change creates ripple effects.

It is the assessments that we make about the changes that make the difference. At work an announced or even impending change can generate a range of responses from “about time – can’t wait” through to “how dare they?”

In the work environment this variation of assessment around change can cause further breakdown of relationships. People can be labeled as “over emotional”, “uncaring “, “resistant” and so on. This doesn’t allow for the validity in the first instance of everyone’s response to the changes. Each of us does have an emotional response to change. What varies is what this response is and how we manage it. My suggestion is that each response needs to be heard and then managed if the changes proposed are to be integrated well into the work environment.

From this same tick box checklist we look at a number of considerations around change based on the number of ticks and the domains that these ticks have occurred in. A larger numbers of ticks and therefore changes, say over ten, may explain why we are so tired and therefore a need to consider self care strategies.

Here too we consider whether as individuals we like and go seeking change or whether by preference we like constancy in our living. What I might find boring living might be another person’s idea of too much change and stress.

If most of our change is at work we may find that home provides with us balance or vice versa. If lots of change is happening in all domains we may have the sense of going from the fire to the frying pan on a daily basis.

Another key factor to our experience with change is whether we have chosen the change or the change has chosen us and we feel the change has been imposed on us.
While the outcome of the change may eventually be the same we often start from a different emotional place depending on our assessment of chosen or imposed.

This simple starter exercise very quickly allows a group to see how one particular change can have significantly different impact for different members of the group and how differently they may perceive the same change.

Our previous experience of change and how we think and speak about change can influence any future experience of change. Those in the group I mentioned earlier who had changed countries and jobs let alone the changes in their current workplace were generally more philosophical and accepting of the changes. They spoke of knowing from prior experience that things sorted themselves out, that there were things that they could do to help themselves through the changes. Other often younger people, where life is just constant change, spoke of wondering what the fuss was all about. Still others spoke of being distressed and disturbed by changes they hadn’t wanted and couldn’t see the point of.

My key offer is the concept that we shape our experience with our assessment of change. This assessment comes out of our previous experience with change and the anticipated impact of any further change.

It is important to know ourselves, to be a good observer of ourselves and change. This involves monitoring how much change we may have occurring, how in line with our preference for change this is, the nature of these changes, chosen or imposed and where the changes are occurring for us. There is not a right or wrong response to change. However knowing yourself you can maximise the opportunities of the change and minimise the stress that change can bring.

Knowing yourself well how might you handle change in your life to thrive rather than just survive?

Transitions & Healthy Change

In my work I am endeavouring to have people thrive rather than just survive their work and their lives. We talk a lot these days about constant change and somewhat less about how we might view change and live change in healthy ways that encourage good living.

The model that I use to have people make sense of what is happening for them is based on William Bridges work around change and transition. He and other consultants like John Kotter state that change requires not only the physical external change of say a workplace or way a team works but also an internal, or emotional, transition that allows us to integrate the changes into how we live and work.

A more simple example might be when we shift house it is rare to feel at ‘home’ until sometime after the move in date. A whole range of things have to happen for each of us to feel at home and this will vary from person to person. This ’range of things’ is the transition if you like. If we fail to make the transition we may never feel at home.

Certainly my experience over the years, both personally and professionally would support this.

After looking at change more generally I will have people talk with me about “what is going on” for them right now at work. Usually I have been called in because change is happening or just been announced. I am interested to hear people’s emotional response, their practical concerns and questions, anything they might be looking forward to from the changes. In fact anything at all they are thinking about the whole situation. Out of this conversation I map their responses under three key headings based on the transition model of Bridges.

In Bridges transition model all change begins with an (1) ending, progresses through the (2) neutral zone and ideally achieves resolution with a (3) beginning or the assessment of opportunity in the change.

In the first instance we all take change deeply personally – what is going to happen for me? Then we start to look at the ripple effects of the changes for others around us. These may be our work mates, customers, anyone we assess will be impacted by the change. My initial goal is to validate everyone’s current experience of the change - we cannot be in any other emotional experience than the one we currently find ourselves in. Understanding where we are we can then reflect on whether this response is going to support thriving or struggling.

So we talk about what is ending for people when a change is chosen or imposed in the domain of work. Some examples of things that come up as ending are, knowing what to do, particular relationships or friendships, job security, current childcare arrangements etc. We talk about ‘letting go’ of ways of thinking and acting that will no longer be possible.

The neutral zone is hardly neutral. Anyone who has had to double clutch through neutral in an old vehicle will know that in neutral you have the least control of that vehicle. This can be the sense of the neutral zone. Change throws us into a time full of questions, concerns, fears (real and imagined). Change can also throw us into a time of inquiry and excitement and teasing out the possibilities that may come out of this change. Either way it is often an energetic phase unless we find ourselves caught in depression or resignation. Being as involved as we can is a key strategy here, being and feeling part of the change even if we didn’t choose it. It is useful in this phase to get clear about the questions and concerns we have and get answers to them. Even if we do not like the answers we can still plan our future based on knowing rather than not knowing. And of course when so much may be up for grabs the neutral zone can be the perfect time to do something quite different, or something that just quietly you have been thinking about for a while. For example one review I was part of, the choices that people explored out of the neutral zone included: early retirement and being a ‘grandma’, shifting departments for a gear up in career, doing further training to be able to work at a different level from the current job. The most painful experience was for people who were just waiting for the change either not to happen or to just be told what to do – and wondering what this would look like.

In neutral we are not where we were in time and knowing and we are not where we will end up. We can’t be – this takes a certain period of time. So we need to take care of our basic human needs. Never underestimate the role of good food, good sleep, good exercise, good friends and family connections and of course being willing to ask for help.

Ideally during this transition conversation we can begin to speak of the possibilities of the beginning – or the opportunities that may arise from the change. However sometimes we cannot in that instant see any possibility for ourselves out of the change. This area of beginnings is often easier to speak to in hindsight, when we have lived into and realised the opportunities we could only guess at when they arose. So for example when my job was disestablished a few years ago it felt terrible. Lots of things ended including feeling wanted in the work place. What was I to do next? How would I support my family etc? I took some time to really think through my options – stay in the field, retrain, what to do? Several years down the track I know that this was a fabulous opportunity for me. I am doing work that is much more suitable and enjoyable.

I have written this article based on conversations in the work place. All of the conversation of transitions and healthy change is equally applicable to the rest of our lives. One young man in another work session commented at the end when we had filled the whiteboard with all the endings, neutral and beginning aspects of his work place, “S…, Kerry-Ann, you’ve just put my whole life up on the board!” He could see where his flat, friendships etc were in different stages of the transition model.

Being able to identify each stage of a change lessens our sense of not coping, of being overwhelmed or powerless to affect our experience of change. It means we can plan our completions or good byes, ask questions or clarify our concerns and our possibilities of the neutral zone and begin to live into our assessed opportunities of the new beginnings.

In short, an ongoing powerful tool for a world where the only constant is change.

Reflections on dance, poetry and the sacred

I recently read an article entitled “Show me in movement what you find sacred”. At least I read the heading several times and ended up in tears every reading. Around the same time I was indulging my love of dance by attending a variety of performances as part of the Tempo Auckland Dance Festival. I went on my own to “Angels with Dirty Feet” – a dance theatre production choreographed by Raewyn Hill. Raewyn is a Wellington based choreographer. Her company Soapbox Productions had produced this work based on Raewyn’s drive to say something about drug addiction. And say something she did to me. Tears again during the performance and then I sobbed my way home in the car. Not the safest way to get home! The next night I went again determined to watch with ‘detachment’, to see if I could work out what moved me so much and why yet more tears around dance and life and living.

I have no personal connection with drug addiction so why the deep response? As a dancer was pulled and flung between four others holding long stretches of fabric I could identify patterns of addictive behaviour in myself in the being pushed and pulled by the people and society around me. I could barely sit in my seat as I watched. As a woman in middle age wanting/needing to take a break I could feel the addiction to ‘keeping going’, ‘keeping working’, surfacing as the story unfolded. I have hungered to be cared for in the achingly beautiful way the dancers gathered each other up, school chairs and all.

I observed how addictions or addictive type behaviours can creep up on us – yet how powerfully the sacred pulls us too. What was sacred in the dance was demanding attention from the sacred within me.

I dance because I have to. I dance because I am danced through. I dance as a restorative when I have been stuck too long in my intellect. I dance whatever shows up in response to the music. And when I can’t dance for real I dance in my soul. I experience life and my living as a dance of being and becoming.

For me my spirituality needs to be embodied in action, in movement that expresses the sacred for me. In a way of living that is alive and in action aligned with the woman I experience myself to be. So to dance whether literally or within unsticks me when I feel grabbed by patterns of addictive behaviour or stuckness.

The final image for me from the dance is the dancers all coming toward the front of the stage. Each looks like an ungainly, stunted bird moving in this exquisite roll of movement; so ugly and so unutterably beautiful – the essence of sacredness as a human being.
In a recent song of the Finn Brothers “Gentle Hum”, the opening lines are, “this bird has to sing, my heart has to follow …” And so it was for me. Watching those birds come toward me, moving their song, my heart opened and followed.

As for all the crying – well I seem to have phases of needing to, as a softening influence, as a call to attention to my spiritual being. I feel reassured by these words from Rumi – “This rain weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh. Cry easily like a little child.”

My life feels fresher for the last few weeks of crying and singing and crying some more and dancing and of being in action in my way. So I show by the movement of my life that which I find sacred. “When I dance each step as it is, I join the symphony of life.” (Unknown)

Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

On being a woman in transition

On 25 May 2005 I called my own bluff and resigned from my salaried job. Not such a big deal you might think but I have never done such a thing without work to go to. This time I had run out of graciousness to stay and plain and simply had to go. Not to another job but into my own business KTLYST instead of working around it all the time.

This decision called my own bluff in several ways. One was that I was doing what I needed to do for myself, very clearly and in a way that my coaching clients often realise they need to. Secondly I was thrown into the transition cycle that I had spent the last three years teaching and supporting people through in my job.

Put simply all change begins with an ending, moves through a phase called ‘neutral’ and ends at the point we assess we are at the beginning again! Change is simply change (with whatever ripple effects it generates) – it is the assessments we make about the changes that usually have the greater impact. Transition is the internal or emotional journey that we make alongside the external and physical changes. We cannot do one without the other and yet we often underestimate the transitions we undergo through change. (For other articles on Change & Transition please see my website)

By resigning I ended a whole variety of things, knowing what my job was, financial security (potentially), the relationship with the people I work with, plus I ended the sense of feeling stuck and trapped in the job. I wasn’t stuck anymore and what a sense of lightness I experienced. So while I felt grief at saying good bye, I also felt gratitude for the opportunities I had realised during my work, relief to have made the decision and anxiety about how I was going to manage financially, no savings and no other support available.

The neutral zone follows hard on the heels of an ending and there is nothing neutral about this phase. It is a time of questions, emotions including fear and anxiety, a sense of being in limbo – of not being where and how we were but equally not being where and who we are going to be. It can be a time of high creativity and innovation as we make radical changes while so much else is in the air or an opportunity to do something we have wanted to but didn’t feel we could. For example, I am more available to do ceremony now and can do my writing during the day rather than late at night after work.

The final phase of change, the beginning, is when we assess we are realising the opportunities of the change. This is not necessarily when the change occurs or the start date. Transition can take time and this will vary for each of us and for each change.

As I write this article it is still a “leap of faith”. I assess I am strongly in the neutral zone. However the call to action was clear and remains steadfast.
Barbara Sher in her book, “It’s only too late if you don’t start now” talks of the second half of our living belonging to us, rather than to our biological or societal drives. I see this move as answering my need to explore my creative spiritual dimensions and to craft my work in a way that is more truly how I like to work.

At the level of my soul I have had a strong ‘longing’ to be working differently. Finally the ‘call to action’ has become the greater imperative and I am now ‘finding my path’.


Arohanui Kerry-Ann