Managing complex change: dealing with the people challenges
I recorded the video below in 2018, just after we had moved to Scotland from Sydney Australia. In it, I reflect on how we can manage the emotional challenges of big, personal change.
There is an understandable tendency to focus on the practical and logistical aspects of managing complex change.
Frameworks like like Kotter’s 8 step model to accelerate change or Bridges’ transition model of change can assisit. But, complex circumstances, give rise to some specific personal challenges for those involved.
In this video, drawing on my own experience of moving my family 12,000 miles to the other side of the world, I reflect on how we can deal with these challenges, and the difficult decisions involved, and also how we can help those around us deal with them too.
Although the experience is a personal one, the ideas I discuss have a much wider application and can assist leaders and managers in the workplace who face the prospect of managing complex change.
Emotional regulation is critical to all kinds of high performance and success. But when complex change is involved it becomes harder for all of us to regulate our emotions given the inherent uncertainties, and ambiguities in the circumstances and anxieties that result.
It helps if we do not focus too much on our ultimate aims when there are many uncertainties ahead of us because that can heighten anxiety. Instead, focusing on the here and now and the immediate steps we can take to move forward can keep us grounded and give us hope for the future.
Related Posts
My posts on complexity are here.
You will find my posts on change here.