How I became more resilient to organizational changes
I learned to become more resilient to organizational changes. I was not taught how to do it. I simply had to find a way to cope better with those times of uncertainty. Organizational changes have had a severe impact on my mental health – call it stress – with a ripple effect on my family and my colleagues. I had to do something about it.
My coping strategy is simple:
Find my position on the change timeline.
Take care of myself
Take care of others
In summary, reflect, focus on what you can influence, be in the action and push forward.
As a middle manager, you will be subject to organizational changes multiple times during your career. Minor ones or major ones, you will be affected, and highly likely, you will need to play a role in making the change happening.
There are numerous models theorizing organizational changes. But there is no bespoke training or miracle solution to make sense of all the feelings, emotions, and paradoxical decisions you will have to handle during an organizational change. As human beings, we live transition periods through the prism of our life experience, and therefore, very differently from one another.
If you are lucky, your work organization uses and successfully implements one of the organizational change models. That should mitigate some of the mental strain related to organizational changes. But as 70% of organizations fail with change initiatives, you should not count too much on it. You might also have a great boss who will invest time to explain the reasons for the change and support you along the way. But even though you have a great leader, you will still have to make sense of the situation for yourself. And you will be on your own when it will be your turn to support your team members and peers who might be in a very precarious mental state.
Time and experience have helped me to apprehend an organizational change without affecting me as much as it had in my early middle manager days. I became more resilient, and as positive energy percolates through your network, my resilience has a positive impact on my colleagues.
Find my position on the change timeline
I have a blue personality. I need structure and visualization to solve problems. The first step is to figure (1) what my position is on the change timeline and (2) when I am made aware of the change. The change timeline I drew is certainly not rocket science, but it helps me to understand where I should focus on, which emotions I should allow myself to deal with and what the path forward is.
Before the change is effective
Something blatantly obvious: you should not spend any mental energy about what happened “before the change” If you are informed only as the change is made effective by the senior management. The timeline is a reminder to always look forward – left to right. You cannot change the past. There is no benefit in dwelling on the fact that you were not put in the confidence that the organizational change was coming or that you have not been part of its design. This will not be help you or your team members.
I have to say, this would have been a typical trigger for toxic thoughts.
You might find yourself at the very right of the change timeline. This is indeed a much better place to start. There, you not only have an opportunity to be an active part of the change, but you also have the obligation to seize that opportunity. There is a range of ways to be active. Engage with your boss and aim for maximum involvement in the change process. At one end of the spectrum, you might be able to influence the change by shaping what the future organizational set-up will be. But at the other end, you might also realize that influencing the change will be difficult or even impossible. You might also not know what the final organizational change will look like. In that case, focus (you and your team) on excelling and delivering maximum value to your business. If some arbitrary decisions (i.e., redundancy…) are made down the change timeline, you will have maximized the positive outcomes for you and your teams.
Wherever you stand in between the two ends of the spectrum, stay in the action. Engage your team and peers to produce suggestions and proposals, for the change itself, or for its implementation.
After the change is effective
The entire organization is now informed about the new organizational set-up. If you were made aware of the change or if you have been part of the change design, you have a head start as mentioned above.
If you were not in the loop of the organizational change and its inception, chances are that you will now have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others and move forward.
At this point and in the best-case scenario, you have been given a playbook of some sort to effectively roll-out and implement the change in your part of the organization. You may have to restructure your department, let team members go, redefine the roles and responsibilities, align with your peers the new interfaces… There will be a lot to do. And in a way, it is good, because it will keep you in an active mode.
But beware of the psychological fallouts, for you and for your teams.
Take care of myself
As already mentioned, everyone will react very differently when facing an organizational change, especially the major ones. If changes are minor, the transition will most likely be smooth. But consequences of an organizational change can also mean the loss of a role, a team, and possibly a job if made redundant. For some, that might be the best thing that can ever happen. Finally, this month of trekking in South-East Asia is possible. Or it might be the perfect opportunity to start something new. But for some others, it may feel as the world is ending, literally.
This is why it is important to take care of yourself before you take care of others – yes, just like in case of sudden loss of pressure in the cabin…
To take care of myself, I developed the following process:
Tune in to my feelings and thoughts
Consider possible scenarios
Mitigate risks
Tuning in to my feelings and thoughts
I need to acknowledge my feelings and my thoughts to filter the noise out and focus on what I can influence and act upon.
There is a range of emotions I can vividly recall when thinking about the different organizational changes I experienced as a middle manager. Those emotions and thoughts can be constructive or useless.
The constructive ones:
Excitement – An organizational change is a source of novelty and an opportunity to address issues related to the “old” organizational set-up. This is a positive emotion that needs to be acknowledged. It is a source of positive energy, for you and your team, which will be required to push through the implementation of the change.
Fear – Combined with surprise, fear has left me in precarious mental state. The best way to overcome that feeling is to reflect on what I fear precisely. Like I deal with my toxic thoughts, I focus on what I can act upon and leave the rest behind.
Doubt – Doubt can manifest itself at various levels. You may start to doubt your purpose and your role in the organization. I address this type of doubt like my toxic thoughts or fear. But if you start to doubt your boss, your colleagues, or your peers, you enter in the next category of feelings and thoughts.
The useless ones:
Disappointment – I have felt disappointed by the fact that I was not aware of organizational change until it was effective or because it was not addressing known issues or was worsening them.
Unfairness – Not all the decisions that shape the organizational change are readily available or clear. There might a perception that a part of the organization has been preserved or favored compared to yours for instance. In the absence of clear rationale, a feeling that something unfair just happened can settle in quickly.
Frustration – Deep frustration will settle in for the same reasons I feel disappointed, or I feel that I or my team have been treated unfairly.
Mistrust – Another classic one (at least to me), and related to doubt, is the loss of trust in the senior management, maybe my own boss or some peers depending on the situation.
Those feelings and thoughts are useless, because no matter how much time and energy you will put onto them, they will not help you to process the change and move forward. There is absolutely nothing personal in an organizational change, it is purely transactional. And therefore, you should not feel any guilt when considering possible scenarios and mitigating associated risks.
Consider possible scenarios
At this point, I know my position on the change timeline. I also made sense of what the organizational change means to me on a personal level by tuning in to my feelings and thoughts. With greater clarity on the situation, it is easier to rationally consider different scenarios.
I will usually consider the best and the worst personal outcomes, and probably a few variations of those in between. For instance, the best scenario could be getting a new role or an increase span of responsibility. This should generate positive energy. I will use this motivation to implement the organizational change and lead my team through it. A bad scenario could be a reduction of your team or remit or even worst, be made redundant. The range of scenarios will be commensurate to the magnitude of the organizational change. It does not need to be all dramatic every time. With the experience, it gets easier to consider the 3-4 most realistic scenarios alongside their likelihood of realization.
Mitigate risks
I have now established credible scenarios of what is waiting for me. I do not need to mitigate risks for the favorable ones. But I need to develop realistic plans in case any of the unfavorable scenarios would materialize. The depth and degree of commitment to those plans will depend on how significant I assess the consequences of the organizational change at a personal level.
These mitigation plans can range from proactively preparing myself mentally for the new organizational set-up, getting some positive energy by focusing on a personal project or simply apply for a new position.
I have been very reluctant to seriously consider mitigating risks as I thought it was unethical, as if I were not loyal to my organization and my colleagues. But again, whilst an organizational change might affect me on a personal level, it is nothing but a business-driven transactional process. So be ready for the worst will help you to take care of you, but also take care of others.
Take care of others
Now that I have took care of myself, I am in the right mental state to help others. Despites of the uncertainties and risks related to the organizational change, I have now established credible contingencies. I am in a much stronger mental space. I can now use this positive mindset to help others navigating the organizational change process.
My team members come first because their mental health and wellbeing at the workplace is my responsibility. Without this key building block, navigating through the organizational change process will be a painful experience for everyone. I also experienced that there is nothing more rewarding than successfully helping your team through a change process. No matter what form it takes, it is a learning experience.
Here as well, I have not come across any miracle solution. But authentic communication is required all along the journey. You might not know every detail and you might not be allowed to say too much about the future organizational set-up. But it is imperative that you foster a psychologically safe communication routine top-down, bottom-up and sidesway. Even if some questions are left unanswered, talking, and sharing what is on your mind has a powerful cathartic effect.
Finally, this is not a linear process. You will have to go back to the previous step “take care of myself” every now and then. Especially if the change process is a long one, fear and doubt will come back impromptu, like waves. Then you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.