Our Ho‘ohana for December: Change

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[Kim Payton]

Organizational Change- a Human Prism

In my role as an organizational psychologist I have had many opportunities to observe how people deal with change. I have come to the basic conclusion that we all love change. We love everyone else to change. When it comes to making change ourselves, especially when it comes as a suggestion from someone else, we tend to have a less enthusiastic response.

This may explain why senior managers, the “change drivers”, especially the CEO cannot understand why their people are so reluctant to change. Try telling the CEO they should change their way of thinking and behavior and see how happy they are. Change drivers tend to be in the position of coming up with ideas on how everybody else should change. So, change drivers love change.

What really separates us into our different stripes as human beings, like a prism separates light into colors, is how we respond to the suggestion that we should change. It all starts with a basic, but unrecognized fact. We spend most of our lives on “automatic pilot”. Our incredibly amazing brains make it possible for us to walk and chew gum at the same time automatically. We can even engage in complex activities like driving a car, or having a relationship, write an email, or even conduct a meeting, on automatic pilot. The problem is, when we are on automatic pilot- “the lights are on but nobody is home”. And the quality of our driving, relationship, email or meeting shows it. So then we get some feedback from someone on that quality. There is a part of us that really likes to stay asleep on automatic pilot. It is comfortable there.

What really separates as human beings is- how do we respond to that feedback? How do we act when somebody wakes us up with some feedback? Some of us pout. We look hurt, and say- why do I have to change? Was I doing something wrong? Then we can sulk, and hopefully the challenge to change will go away. This is the dependent type of person. The behavior is passive aggressive.

In another category we find the one, who when given feedback, or a challenge to change, gets even. “Who are you to tell me what to do?” “Let’s drag all your faults out and examine them for awhile”. This is the active aggressive approach, the purpose of which is to shift the argument, and change the subject. Hopefully the feedback or the request to change will just go away.

Then there is what I call the “Response Able” person. This person is hungry for information that will help them grow. Given feedback to improve, or a challenge to change, they will seek clarification, they may argue the details, but they internalize the feedback and use the energy generated by the challenge to change to propel them forward in life.

I believe it is true that we are all somewhat intimidated by the unknown, by the new. We don’t know how it will go. It makes us anxious. What differentiates us is how we deal with that intense energy, that anxiety. How we deal with it is a function of our confidence in ourselves, with our experience in dealing with change successfully, and with our trust in the context we find ourselves in.

This is where we have a somewhat unique environment in Hawaii. Many of the people in our workforce did not have a great experience in school. Many were not taught that they can. They were taught that they cannot. There has been a tendency for many organizations in Hawaii, especially government and the service industries, which makes up, most of the jobs in Hawaii, to not invest in training and developing people at the same rate as other states and other countries. So we fell behind. So much for confidence in ourselves.

The powerfully labor oriented governmental structures in Hawaii have shielded us here from change until recently. There are still organizations in Hawaii that have changed very little for many years. So when change shows up on the doorstep, for many people it is a threatening stranger. They may not have had the experience that Rosa describes, of looking back on change and seeing that it brought good things into their lives. So much for confidence in dealing with change.

The final blow is our labor history in Hawaii. So many people have been taken advantage of for so much of Hawaii’s history, that we have a generational suspicion of management, leadership, and change. I encounter many people who seem almost constitutionally suspicious of management, as if, to trust management, they would have to become somebody else that they would not recognize.

So to achieve organizational change in Hawaii, we have to do a number of things. Leadership has to understand what they are up against. They are up against fear, and they have to change a way of living and thinking that has deep roots in Hawaii. I have discovered a few things that really help:

• Leadership that is approachable, that has a sense of humor, that can laugh at itself, and change in the face of feedback from employees. This means leaders need to model healthy change in their own behavior.

• Communication is essential, in detail. Change communication tends to be disjointed and fuzzy. People need to know exactly what is expected of them. Then they will be able to figure out exactly what they are afraid of.

• Then it is critical to provide training and support to help people deal with what they are afraid of.

If we can get a person through one cycle of change successfully, they build confidence in themselves and a little trust in us. So start small- baby steps, and build the capacity to change.

Thanks for listening. You’ve got a cool website here, like Doug said.

Aloha, Kim Payton

[Doug]

So...Kim P. finally showed up. Good hearing from you, Kim. I am waiting to see who else shows up and comments on his/her experience with change before I weigh in on the subject...but weigh in I must. After all, Rosa was nice enough to take up my suggestion for this month's topic. I will be back!

[Rosa]

Aloha Kim, and welcome to Talking Story. My mahalo for sharing your insights and experiences with our Ho'ohana Community. You give us much to think about.

For now, let me add this: we can help our CEOs be more receptive to our feedback, by giving it to them often (practice makes perfect!) and with the right attitude of our own. As an executive, I loved hearing from staff who considered themselves my business partners: they gave me feedback that was about "us." They thought about things Kakou, inclusively, and used the "language of we." When that happened, I welcomed them as the change drivers, often finding they had far better ideas about needed change than I had!