Hello, thank you for joining me. We're here to talk about living with change. This idea of being more intentional about living with change has become a critically important survival skill for all of us as we try to deal with and ideally learn how to thrive on all of the changes that we face throughout our lives. My name is Chris agile. That's me here in my office talking to you wherever you are, you take this course, I'm in two different organizations Sundance consulting, consulting firm, and last week press which is a publishing business. I spent the last three decades of my career helping people in organizations change client base that literally is around the world.

And it includes all three sectors, corporate government and not for profit. And it ranges from large global multinational organizations with 10s of thousands of employees down to small local, not for profit organizations with in some cases under 100 employees. In those organizations, I've worked with hundreds of executives and many, many, many hundreds of managers at all levels, and 10s of thousands of employees. The one constant throughout all of my projects is something's changing. And it's usually something major, it's often many major changes, and it's not necessarily going smoothly, things are challenging. I've got a graduate degree in applied behavioral sciences where I learned both the art and the science and systems leadership and change.

So I've been able to draw on existing theories and develop some of my own ideas around helping people change I've written and published a number of resources. And like most people, I've dealt with many major changes in my own life over the years. And sometimes I learned from my mistakes and other times, I've been fortunate enough to apply some of the ideas that I've learned. And they've really helped. I put together some resources that will help you get the most out of this course, to the most important ones, and I encourage you to print them off, there's a set of slides that will have all of what you see on the screen in front of you. I don't want you to worry about taking notes, I want to give you all the information so there it is.

More importantly, and perhaps the most important resource will be these worksheets. So I would encourage you to print them off one page at a time one page per worksheet, and I'm going to ask you periodic times during this workshop to stop the program and put a pencil in your hand and do some things on this particular worksheet. It'll become explanatory very quickly as I get to each particular worksheet but It's an opportunity for you to start to use some of the ideas that I'm sharing right in the moment. So you'll find those helpful. I also put together an article called making space with change that you might also find helpful. There's a whole other set of resources I'd like you to consider here.

Got a number of colleagues at work that may well be neck deep in the same changes that you yourself are dealing with. So it might be a good idea to take this course with a few people you work with, or better yet, even your whole team. That way, you can stop this program at any point in time, and discuss what those ideas that I'm sharing have to do with you and how you might be able to apply them in your work environment. You also might find that you've got other resources in terms of people at home, so it could be significant other could be good friend, whatever it might be. So if we're all in this together, so We've got lots of resources that can be helpful to each other number of objectives for our time together, this is all relatively straightforward. I want to help us to understand what's going on right now that's creating the change that we're dealing with in our lives.

So we're in a unique period of history right now. So I'd like to share some ideas around a global pace of change the organizational context and pace of change. And what that means to us personally, I'd like to explore how change impacts us and to determine how we can effectively learn how to thrive on change. You may have already figured this out. But in an organization, you don't have much control over the change who didn't get a vote, you probably didn't even get asked whether you wanted to. You're being told to to change, somebody makes an idea it's implemented and bam, there it is, you have to do something different.

Now, that may sound a little harsh, but it's usually almost 100% of the time true. So when we don't have much control over the change itself, we do have 100% control over the transition. So I'd like to start that conversation by clarifying the difference between change and transition. And then we're going to develop a personal transition plan, or maybe a collective transition plan. If you're doing this course with a number of colleagues or your entire team, for the current organizational changes that you're all dealing with. Then we're going to develop some change maps, and transition maps to determine where we are on our change journey, and finish a plan that we will be developing throughout our time together, that will help you keep moving forward in good shape, the flow of our conversation.

This introduction is going to be over in a couple seconds. Then we're going to talk about the context of global organizational and personal change. Then we're going to talk about how change impacts us and what we can do to take better care of ourselves. assess our resiliency and figure out how we can improve that. We'll explore the difference between change and transition, we'll talk a little bit about resistance and resonance or baggage as well. We're going to develop a transition plan to take control over the transition that we're struggling through as it relates to all of the changes at work these days.

Then we're going to put together a little bag of survival skills in terms of simply living with change, draw out a little bit of a map in terms of where we are in transition with all of those changes, and then finish off our action plan. So that's the flow. Again, thank you for joining me. Let's look at changing context. A lot of what's happening globally is writing organizations. And some of that even impacts us personally.

So let's start with the big picture. I'd like you to get this image in your mind's eye this blue and white, green and brown or We're hurtling through time and space on. And given that big picture perspective, at this moment in history right now, what's your sense of the global pace of change? Is it quieter than normal? Is it about normal? Is it more chaotic than usual?

Or is it perhaps never been like this before? So what's your thoughts on that? I want to share two perspectives on this to see if we can shine a little more light on the pace of change globally. First time I saw the screen, my response was too much text. I don't have time to read this. Nonetheless, I did.

And I found it interesting and even a little helpful. So I would invite you to simply take the 30 seconds, it takes no more than that to read Asimov's quote, push pause now and read this. Welcome back. So what you thought what did this mean? With I just think you remember two things coming out of this one, as it was pretty smart guy to put man's existence into this perspective. So that, you know, someone with a relatively average intelligence like myself can understand it.

The second thing was, clearly the pace of change is speeding up. You could put that pace of change speeding up on a bit of a graph, time on the horizontal rate of change on the vertical and we would end up albeit a bumpy line, a bit of a exponential curve, if you will, where we see very little progress on the rate of change over a long period of time, and then things start to accelerate. Where are we today? I don't know. We could be here. Maybe we're farther along.

Maybe we're not that far. I'm not sure. Here's another way to think about this. Now. This is a way to think about human development before great ages. Now this is profoundly out of scale, the arrow that goes to the Left of hunting and gathering suggests that it's hundreds of thousands of years old and long.

So we don't have that scale on the screen. But these great ages, the hunting gathering, followed by every cultural followed by scientific followed by industrial, while the change or change has been constant throughout this time, it hasn't happened in a even accelerated pace. There have been compressions, short, intense periods of chaos and transformation, that hinge each of these great ages together. And every time we come through one of these periods of chaos and transformation, the pace has changed, speeds up. So let's just look at this really quickly, again, a very condensed view of these periods of chaos and transformation. So hunting and gathering hundred thousands of years, and things start to settle down things actually, we start to figure things out.

As a species, initial thing, we've started to figure out how we can actually harvest wild grains and graphs and so on for food tours. Now, we've been doing this for a while, but someone took the step to put the seeds in the ground and see if we could intentionally grow them ourselves rather than wait for the seasons to produce. Of course, we still had to pay attention to breaking ground of course, which we'd never done before. We use some pretty crude instruments or implements pulled by people, but we learn how to domesticate animals that provided us power for the plow, if you will, also a more predictable and somewhat safer food source we learn how to manage water and irrigation. we settle down as a species and land becomes power. We learn how to store food, the population grows and 10s of thousands of years we're in the agricultural age and then we start to figure out things out.

Interesting. The scientific revolution really got started with astronomy. The prevailing thought of the day now this is back in the late 1400s was that the earth is the center of the known universe. People like Kepler and Copernicus, Galileo big telescope that proved that the earth actually is just a planet that revolves around the Sun and there's other planets that revolve around the sun and there's highly likely to be other suns, with other planets. This turned the prevailing thought, right upside down, and was a very unpopular notion for quite a while. Gutenberg perfected printing press and started the capacity to share knowledge across a very wide scale, took a while for the printing press to catch on because not many people could read but eventually, universities and colleges started to grow and we started to learn more things faster.

Many more people had access to the printed word Magellan sets out and while he didn't make the Voyage Home, but it was the first circumnavigation of the earth, proving irrefutably that the earth is not flat. And one of the major things that came out of the scientific revolution was the scientific method. Now this was a disciplined approach for solving problems and proving opinions or perspectives that had been long held. Now the scientific method was used to Herald major changes in medicine, and all kinds of research and engineering. So it accelerates the pace of change again, and we're in the Age of Enlightenment now in the age of the Renaissance. And now we creep up to the Industrial Revolution.

And this is accelerating us through major breakthroughs like the steam engine was perfected here by James Watt. was used to power trains the first use was put to keeping water out of coal mines coal had becoming a fuel of choice was also hooked up to things like cotton looms, and the textile business transformed overnight, put it in a ship whole paddle Wheeler or a propeller and almost overnight transformed global transportation. hooked up, tractors fit up to plows, fundamental shift in agriculture. And the migration was on and this was the population now started to migrate to big cities increasing in size, and they were dirty, burning coal and so on. So the urban center started to develop in this Industrial Revolution, and we've been in this industrial age for the last few hundred years. Well, actually, we've been in the last few years of the industrial age, and we're in this digital revolution.

It's unfolding right now right underneath our nose breakthroughs like the integrated circuit that started back in the late 50s and early 60s. And that was put into computers and until this time had been massive things who would fill up large rooms, somebody started to play with the idea. There's a couple people actually have hooking these computers up together by phone lines. And some of you may remember the dial up modems, that was in the early years of the internet. A major breakthrough that happened wasn't a digital technology, but it was November the ninth 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, which signaled the collapse of the idea of a controlled economy. So now, the world is basically in a free market economy.

Well, that provided all kinds of finance and money available for lots of things. World Wide Web started to take hold in the early 90s. telecommunications started to hook things up far faster than phone lines would throughout the decade of the 90s, the money that went into fiber optic cable underneath yours oceans provided a level of connection and speed that had been till this time completely available. mosaic is not a name you're likely to remember it was the very first browser. These days, we've got logos for the four most common browsers that connect us all to an unprecedented rapidly growing market of information. And we're using tools now that are flat screen small, very fast that connect us all 20 473 65 all around the world.

Now, we're not through this revolution yet, because we're still relying on Industrial Age fuel sources. And we're likely to be in this period of profound chaos and transformation for another generation or two, until we solve the next great energy problem. So Go back to your thought, again, this pace of change today in human history at global level, quiet about normal, more chaotic than usual or is it never been like this? I'm in the never been like this camp, the scope, the pace the complexity I truly believe is unprecedented at this point in time. Now that we've looked at the global perspective, let's see if we can make sense of something that's a bit more knowable. I'd like you to get in your mind's eye, a picture of your whole organization, however big it is, however, spread out it is.

And not only do I want you to get a picture of the organization in your mind's eye, for the next few minutes, I'd like you to become your organization. And I'd like you to think as if you were the organization. First thing I'd like you to think about is what's going on relative to the pace of change. Is this a relatively quiet period of time in your organization? Is that about normal this more chaotic than normal? Or have you never been in a situation or an environment like this?

Nonetheless, whichever of those are that apply to you makes perfect sense based on your understanding of the situation, depending on how long you've been around. So what I'd like you to do is to think about the rationale for change. Obviously, there's changes going on in the organization. And I'd like you to consider answers to three basic questions. You are the organization right now, what's pushing you around? What are the pressures are the opportunities?

What are the threats? I'd like you to think internally. I'd like you to think externally, why is change necessary right now? What's at stake if your organization doesn't respond, or doesn't change successfully, to adapt to and respond to those particular threats. And lastly, where is your organization going? What is its preferred future that it's trying to create?

Just take a minute, there's a worksheet that's provided. And I'd like you to make some notes. You can pause this if you like. I'd like you to answer those questions. If you've got some colleagues there with you have a discussion. Some examples that might be relevant to yours.

This is certainly for many organizations, and one particular organization I work with not long ago, no competition has showed up long term quality issues were nagging for a long time, and they were still unresolved. Customers had some new options. Now there were other players in your business and regulations, and there was some unhappy customers. So obviously, those were some pressures or problems they needed to respond to. So what was at stake if the organization didn't actually change? Well, clearly we could have some problems here with Some customers Miss quarterly targets or maybe no bonuses that could be layoffs.

And perhaps more importantly, they would possibly lose credibility with potential customers not only lose their existing ones, but they wouldn't attract new ones. What were they trying to do? Well, they were trying to improve customer satisfaction numbers by 40% in over three months. And that was a big reach. They wanted to match new competition on price and selection. They were trying to get into regular compliance mode, and they really wanted to see a future where they had some long term viability.

So that was the foundation or the rationale for change in that particular organization. What's going on in yours? Once we have that rationale or foundation for change in place, what I'd like you to do is to take stock, what's actually changing in your organization right now. Again, there's another worksheet and I'd like you to pause this and just make some notes to yourself, what would be the recent past changes perhaps three, four months ago, backwards about 18 to 24 months, perhaps the current changes could be in the four or five months window you're in the middle of right now. And in the near future, you might think of two or three months out over the next two or three years. So what are the changes the actual changes, so these are decisions that have been made, and things that you're trying to make different as an organization.

So again, push pause, have a conversation with some colleagues and make a list. Here's what it looked like in one particular organization. Some of these changes you might find as the first one spans all three timeframes, because it's a pretty major change, overhauling the rhit system. If you've ever lived through one of those, you know, that's a major change. So it was going to take several years. A new director in Alaska two big clients a new marketing initiative that started new production procedures and some new quality metrics that had happened in the last seven 810 12 months.

Right now what was going on was the IT system was chugging along and it's overall, a couple of new products and marketing launch three new small clients, loss of one big key client and production procedures are continued. And as they look forward in the near future, IT system overhaul was going to continue. This could see an SAP launch as a part of that coming forward, marking a program was going to be expanded. And there were going to be some minor structural changes that they could see in your organization structure going forward. And they were planning on a new compensation and bonus system once they got some of these building blocks in place. So that's simply a stock taking, if you will, of the major enterprise wide changes that are going on in that particular organization.

What's going on in yours? Now that we've looked at change from a global and organizational perspective, let's narrow our focus. Let's look at what's happening in our own situation. I'd like you to find this worksheet. And I'd like you to take stock of changes that are going on in your life right now. Now, there's two dimensions that I'd like you to consider.

One is, there may be changes that are impacting you that are not changes of your own choosing. You have other people in your life that are important to you, and they may well be making some changes, and somehow that will impact you. So you'll need to write those down, as well as changes that you yourself are initiating. I'd also like you to think about a timeframe that you're in the middle of right now. So recent past changes last 12 to 24 months, maybe a little bit farther if there's some significant ones, and maybe out into the near future changes that you've decided on but haven't put in place. Yeah, bereavement changes that you're just considering.

This is information just simply for you, you can share this with your life. But really, this is your own personal stock taking, push, pause, take a moment and just take stock. Here's an example of one particular person's changes that were going on. And yours look like what yours look like. What I'd like you to consider here is, given all of these changes, what's the quality and the quantity? How many?

And how significant are these changes? Now we can think about all of these changes as balls that we might have up in here. So quantity simply means how many balls Do we have up in the air? It could be five could be 25. Who knows? I mean, everybody has their own lawns at this particular moment in time. But not all changes are equal.

Not all balls are the same size or weight or shape. The quality of the change is something to consider as well, are these essentially speed bumps in that you would look back six months from now and may not even remember this change or is this Feel like a fairly significant change. Now significant changes seem to fall around very common themes, major changes in health, for the better or for the worse, major changes in finance for the better or for worse, marriage and or divorce, having children birth or death. So those would be themes of major changes. So when you think about the load that you're currently carrying right now, in terms of how many, and how big would you think that this moment in time for you and your history or experience with change today is quieter than normal? is about normal?

Perhaps more chaotic than usual, but still very manageable? Or is it feel like it's completely overwhelming and it feels like you're in a right angle Turner heading over a precipice because there's so many major changes underway. So this moment for you, how would you describe it? However you describe this moment in time for you in terms of change, clearly, you've got some changes going on. And change does stuff to us. Dealing with change is very difficult, especially difficult at times of overwhelming change.

But change, sometimes even the most positive change that we think is going to be a great deal can be hard. So what I'd like to do is explore what is it the change does to us? And how can we deal with these storms of change? I'd like you to find this worksheet, how has changed impacting you? And this is a great conversation. So what I'd like to do is if you can find one other person, or maybe even your whole workgroup could have a conversation sharing some of these ideas.

What are you noticing how is change impacting you right now on any of these dimensions physical, social, vocational, spiritual, psychological, intellectual, emotional, or anything else you might consider. So simply push pause. Have a conversation or make some notes to yourself, how is change impacting me right now socially? How is change impacting me emotionally? So take a moment. And let's see what you came up with.

Here are just a few of the very classic signs of how change impacts us as people in each of these categories. So let's start with physical for example, you may find yourself worn out and physically tired, you may have put on some weight, your immune system may be running low and you've got an ongoing flu or cold you can check maybe on an emotional level if we go counterclockwise around the will be cranky all the time. You might be more impatient here, perhaps scared sometimes, and maybe you haven't laughed in a long time. intellectually, you may find yourself unable to concentrate or you can't remember even short term things, or you might be really fired up because you are learning things right? Alan lots of it and you love that intellectual stimulation. Psychologically, you might find your sense of self esteem rate, very low right now, you might be questioning your own competency and an other category and you can put anything you like.

And you may find that you've noticed you've stopped saving money. You've been burning through a lot of Catholic, maybe you're not taking your holidays. Spiritually, you might feel lost and overwhelmed. You may be questioning many of the things that you've taken for granted on the spiritual level, you might find yourself hating coming to work, and you might find yourself just simply working far too hard. And when it comes to social it might be holy cow, what's social life, I haven't seen my friends forever, it seems like you have no downtime. So those would be some natural normal impacts.

And if nothing else that comes out of this. I'd like you to know first of all in the conversation that you've had, perhaps with your colleagues or even if you've just done this on your own all of this stuff is perfectly normal and natural. You are not going crazy, you're not losing it. And you're not alone. This is the very classic signs of how change is impacting us. Now, given all of that, you are still obviously functioning at a very high level.

How are you doing that? What are you doing to take care of yourself? I'd like you to then make a list of some things that you could actually point to whether you're cognizant of it and I've done it intentionally or it's just good management on your part. You haven't really thought about it, but you're finding you're doing some things take good care of yourself, again, physically, socially, vocationally, spiritually, whatever it might be. So again, push pause, take a moment and take stock. How are you taking care of yourself right now?

Here's some ideas. Let's start with physical again. physical wellness is all built around three dimensions. What are you putting into your system? How much output and rest. So input is all about eating properly drinking lots of water, and healthy, nutritious food output is about.

Without taking it to an extreme, you don't have to become a triathlete. But let's make sure we're doing something physical each day. strength, flexibility, breath, those kinds of things. And let's make sure we're getting a good rest. Socially. How can we take care of ourselves, maybe it's being very intentional to stay connected with old friends, whether it's old, five, or six or seven or eight or 10.

Friends, for your own best friend, staying connected to a support group around you. Perhaps you might find you're doing too much of that and it's over stressing you you might find it's important to find a few moments of quiet time alone. vocation vocational wellness is you can tell whether you're in good shape. vocationally by simply answering this question with the affirmative? Would you apply for your current job right now? And if the answer is yes, then you're probably in pretty good shape.

But occasionally, if the answer is no, the question then is, why are you still there? So it's really helpful even if you answer yes, that I would apply for my current job, and this is a good place. It's really important these days to have a resume and a network up to date. Continually staying connected with what's coming in going in terms of jobs and opportunities and careers in your field. It also might serve you well to ease up on some of the overtime hours and and essentially work within your means, if you will, all of those things are are helpful around being vocationally in good shape. From a spiritual perspective, as any number of things that can be done, could be journaling could be simply meditating.

It could be spending time in spiritual places where whether that's in a mosque or Church prayer read wherever it might be spiritual wellness connected to something beyond your own ego in your own skin. From another category, perhaps it's time to commit to start saving again. Or maybe it's stopped banking time and take your holidays. from a psychological perspective, continually staying in touch with things that you are good at. Often change, especially major change in organizations can put us in a situation where we're constantly having to new things, learn new things, and we lose track of the fact that we may never be able to get this new system of money. But there are still some things that we are good at.

Also surround yourself with people who love you, in spite of the fact it feels like you're half off your rocker these days. So a good support network. Again, that critical connection between social and psychological can be very helpful. intellectually, maybe there's some things that you can learn maybe you can ask for help from people in your organization or people in your social circle. Maybe you can also lower the bar on expectations and take it easy on herself for the next little while relative to her intellectual output. From an emotional perspective, taking care of herself is really all about emotional wellness is is simply the ability to stay in touch with and find ways to express the myriad of emotions that will flow through us on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis.

So it's time to cry cry. So if it's time to get angry, find ways to get the hang around. If it's if it's been a long time since you've left, watch a funny movie and something that will help us deal with the emotional impact of all of these changes. So what are you doing to take care of yourself? Now that we've talked about how it changes impacting you and what you're doing to take care of yourself, with enough good management on your partner, simply Good luck. I'd like you to determine what kind of shape you're in Find this worksheet called assess your resiliency.

Couple things I'd like to point out on the outside of this wheel, you will see each of the dimensions we've just talked about vocational, social, physical, emotional, etc. And there's also a scale, if you will, one in the center would reflect a low score, and 10 on the outside would reflect a high score. Paul, I'd like you to do is to consider at this moment in time in your life, what kind of shape Are you in on each of these dimensions? So socially? What kind of shape Are you emotionally? What kind of shape Are you in and simply put an extra checkmark on these axes?

Don't overthink this, but you might want to just push pause for a second and put some checkmarks or x's on your assessment tool. Here's an example of what it might look like. Now this is just an arbitrary example. Of course, yours would certainly look very different. First thing I want you to do is to connect those checks or x's, whatever you've got on yourself. Assessment and let's see what the shape is.

Now what does this shape look like to you? I mean, this one, maybe it's an amoeba, I have no idea what it looks like. But there's a couple of characteristics I'd like you to think about. One would be the overall roundness of this thing. And the second would be the size. So if you were to imagine that this is a wheel of your life, if you will, first of all, what overall round shape does it have?

Or does it in this case, this would be a pretty rough ride. If this was a wheel on a bike and you were going for a bike ride would be a clump, but from flip flop, it would be hard to get it in motion, keep it in motion, of course. So the one thing is the overall roundness of it all. The second thing would be what's the overall size Now we could be perfectly round and it would be 2222222. So while that's round and it would roll, it will take a fair amount, if not a significant amount of energy to keep this thing Moving this little wheel of your life, and if you've ever ridden a small bike, like a tricycle versus a big bike like a road bike, you'll know the difference of the kind of energy it takes to keep the smaller wheels turning.

There's a couple things that are really important to pay attention to here, hey, this particular image reflects your shape as it is right now, today, this is a very fluid image, this can change daily, weekly, monthly, and there will be some tendencies over time that you might want to track. But this is a fairly dynamic beast, if you will. The second thing, there is a direct and immediate correlation to the size of this and the roundness of this your overall sense of resiliency. The higher rounder is better of course. So your level of resilience is directly connected, immediately impacting your ability to deal with change. The third thing is You are 100% in control of this organization is not in charge of this, your significant other is not in charge of this, this is yours.

This is where you can actually put some effort to get and stay in better shape overall, to continue to roll with the punches of change. So I'd like to think about pick one of the axes that might be for you. And in this moment in time, a little lower than you might think. What could you do to perhaps get in a little bit better shape? So maybe you might think about, how would we improve our resiliency for dealing with ongoing change by simply focusing on one of these dimensions, and that's probably a reasonable place to start, especially if it happens to be noticeably low. And you would reflect that it has been noticeably low for a while now.

So that's one thing. The second thing to think about is, I bet that this isn't the first time you started. So what gets in the way, when you've tried to do these kinds of things in the past? Remember, you've got 100% control over this. Now, I don't want you to to off a whole big mouthful of I need to do three things, here are five things. Let's start with just one thing, pick one of those axes and, and I'd like you to just make a note to yourself, simply by finding this other worksheet, this action plan.

So put your name on it, put today's date on it, maybe some other people might be involved with this resiliency piece for you right now, this is all yours. So I'd like you to make a commitment to yourself. So this would be maybe one, no more than two things that you will do. Could be within the next week. Maybe it's within the next month, but this resiliency stuff can all be very, very short term. So at least one thing, no more than two.

I'd like these to be kind of compelling, a little bit intriguing kind of Ooh, this might be actually kind of fun things to do, to get and stay in better shape overall. Remember, this is something you have 100% control over. We've talked a lot about change up until this point, global organizational personal. We've talked about what change does to us and even develop the sense of what kind of shape you're in in terms of dealing with changing, maybe where you can improve. But rarely is changed the heavy lifting. More often than not, it's the transition that doesn't seem it's the transition where the real challenge lies.

So let's figure out what's the difference between change and transition. Let's start with change. One simple way of defining change is the act of making something different. We used to live in this place and now we're living in this place. We used to have this as a structure in your organization. Now we have that as a new structure.

I had this boss and now I've got top boss, etc, etc, etc. change can happen very quickly. It's focused on the new thing. Want to be in the new house. This is going to be a great piece of software. It's focused on that outcome.

It is indeed an event we make a decision will implement something and then something changes. transition is different. Here is a transition line superimposed on top of the change line. Now, transition is the internal reorientation. It's how we adjust or how we adapt internally to an external event. Now, this internal reorientation certainly takes place individually.

But it also takes place collectively in our work groups and our divisions departments for organizations, whole cities, whole countries, depending on the magnitude of the event can go through transition. The thing about transition as it relates to change is it's always slower. It takes more time. It's gradual, and it can be messy. It's not nearly as clean cut and dry as change. Somebody wants to describe changed me as a warm knife to a hard pound of butter and very quickly you end up with Two pieces of butter.

Whereas transition is more like a hockey puck warm toffee up and try to pull it apart and you end up with a mess. Before you'll end up with two chunks of toffee. The other thing I'd like you to think about here is this thick blue line positioned on the change line underneath the timing of transition is different. We're usually in transition well before the actual change itself takes place. The three phases of transition unfold before, during and after the change. Those three phases of transition are known as separation in between, and integration to help you understand that you already know a lot about this because you've been in transition before you may not know you know, transition seems to make more sense initially in hindsight than it does when we're in the middle of it.

So I'd like you to think about the last time you moved. Now this is relatively fresh for me because we've just recently helped my dad move Now he's been talking about this move, downsizing his place and moving into another smaller place for upwards of a year. And I could see inside him, things start to unsettled, and he started to unplug, and he started to clean some things out, he was still living in your place. But all the while he was starting to separate, consciously or unconsciously away from his own world, the actual change itself just recently took place. And it took three and a half hours, it was really a pretty straightforward move. So the actual event was really short.

Now he's in this new place, but it's not home yet. It's gonna take a while for him to settle in and truly feel like this now is home. So I'd like you to think about that from your perspective as it relates to a recent major change, like that's a pretty big change for most of us and try to understand This gradual reorientation we go through that takes much longer than the event of change itself. Now, I would love to tell you that this gradual reorientation, this flow of separation in between an integration always unfolds perfectly. And then all we need to do is get better at it to speed it up. I mean, that would be the theory.

But the reality this is really quite different. Here are some examples of different ways transition can play out. This first one is an example of a merger between two hospitals. And this is a transition simply that didn't happen while the merger had taken place. People would not let go of the past, there were two factions. And depending on which side of the house you were on, you were one of the good guys and one of the bad guys and this was a very adversarial environment and certainly as challenging one to be a part of.

Here's another example. This would be an example of a transition where we're lost in between. It was a in this case, a picture of a reorganization that people had. Some people had to some degree disconnected from some things of the old world. But the leaders were nowhere in sight to help people through the confusion of the time in between and point to the new way of doing things. people describe this as circling the drain and some people want to go back some people love the confusion.

Some people wanted to go what direction they thought was the right way to go. Other people just left the organization. It was a challenging time. So here's another one. And this is a delayed transition. This would be in one particular unit of an organization wanted nothing to do with change that had come out of headquarters and literally just parked it on a shelf.

And for many months, in fact, it was A year and a half until this one particular leader of this one particular part of the organization was called into head office and was essentially read the riot act. We've been watching Are you going to get this done or not? And fairly short order because he decided he did want to stay with the organization to after 18 months finally get his people on board with this new initiative. Now, the reality is that typically what happens because transition takes so much longer than the change is that we may have all of these and many other variations unfolding simultaneously. All the while, more and more change is being implemented. So we'd like to try and avoid these options or variations on the theme as much as possible.

So then what we need to learn how to do is to deal with each of these three phases of transition. Now, here's a graphic and we'll use this to create a bit of a trap. Position map in a little bit. But this would be the old world that used to be on the left hand side and the New World, as we want it to be on the right hand side, all of the work of getting through transition separation in between an integration somewhere in between. So the three phases of transition, leaving that old world behind being intentional about letting things go. The second phase of transition is time in between a very confusing and bewildering, chaotic time.

And we're no longer where we used to be. And we're certainly not yet where we're supposed to be often overwhelmed and feeling out of sorts. In the third and final phase of transition is when things start to settle in and we start to get connected or re establish connections or establish new connections, and we get committed to the new world. So change versus transition are two additional concepts that are helpful to understand here. When we're dealing with change in the present tense, we may find ourselves, remembering situations from the past, this recollection or resonance or baggage can be very positive. It can also be very challenging and very negative.

It depends on what we're reflecting on. So for example, if your organization is going through a reorganization and the recollection of the last time you went through a reorganization was, it was a little rough. But I mean, at the end of the day, it came out very positive, you ended up with a new role in your organization, and it's never been better. So therefore, you may think about, oh, boy, another reorganization. This is going to be great, or, if experienced with reorganization in the past was less than desirable. If perhaps it's like, oh my gosh, that was 18 months sorting this all out and it really was a mess.

And at the end of the day, everybody came out worse off, at least that's what it seemed like, holy cow, I sure hope it's not going to be another one of those things. So that resonance or that bang edge comes along with it, especially for unresolved transitions. The other concept that's worth noting here is resistance, the reluctance or reticence to want to go along with the change, or struggle through the transition. A couple things to remember here, first of all, resistance is perfectly normal and perfectly natural. We all resist change, even changes that we long for, we can resist. So, when we think about the resistance, the resistance as we start to unpack that can come from the change itself.

It could come from the transition, or it could come from memory or baggage or resonance. So what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to find this worksheet, the reality of resistance. And I'd like you to think about all of the changes that are going on for you right now at work and think about where you are Resistance might be coming from. So first of all, it's perfectly normal and natural and very healthy to recognize, you might be a little bit reluctant or a little bit cautious going into this. So is it coming from the change itself? For example, maybe the new job has got a very steep learning curve.

So we're not all of that. Sure, we can learn this thing fast enough. And we never like to be behind the learning curve. So that may be causing some reluctance. Or it's not the learning curve at all. It might be you know, I really miss my old boss this, this whole thing that's going on.

I mean, wow. You know, I really enjoyed working with my boss, and you know, I really miss her. Or it might be, wow, this reorg I hope this really isn't like what happened the last time I changed jobs, this time around, it better be easier. So that's the notion of resistance based on baggage or resonance. So here's the thought, What can you do right now to deal with all forms of this resistance that you're struggling with. This is all very normal, very natural.

So what I'd like you to do is to find this worksheet again, this action plan. And again, this one is simply a note to yourself, in this case it might be in probably is things that you can do. Maybe it's in the next month or so maybe it's within the next week, maybe it's some things that we collectively could do a group of, you're experiencing the same kinds of changes and struggling with the same kinds of resistance. So just make a note or two, how will you deal with the ongoing challenge of resistance? Now that we have a basic understanding of the difference between change and transition, let's outline a bit of a transition plan. We're going to focus our transition plan on some changes that we have going on, and those are going to be the changes at work.

So if you find your worksheet this You did a while back on what's changing in your life, there was a category there for work. So these would be the organizational changes. Or if it's maybe just one major change that's affecting you right now, a couple questions to think about before we get into the transition side of the equation. Do you really know what these changes mean to you at this point? Or is it a little too early to tell? Do you know what you need to do differently?

Do you know how you may need to shift attitudes or behaviors? And if you don't know that stuff, who do you talk to? To find out? Where would you go and get some more information. So that's the focus or organizational changes that are going on or life right now. And what we're going to do is we're going to look at each of the three phases of transition and determine what we need to do to get through this.

Remember I said earlier, rarely do we get a vote on change. So we don't have a lot of wealth printed, we don't have any control over the changes in the organization, other than the fact that we Continue to show up to work, changes will be put upon us. However, we do have 100% control over transition. So let's see what it takes to get through transition. This first phase of transition is referred to as separation or endings or closure. It's about separating away from the old world as we used to know it.

Now, there's a couple things to consider here. As you get clear about what this new thing is supposed to be, we will need to sort out what's over now and what's not. There may be some tangible things like schedules or relationships or customers products that you have to say goodbye to, there may be some of those things that you will need to bring along with you because they're not over. So it's very clear that not everything is over. But there will be some things that need to stop or we need to leave behind us. Some of the things won't Be quite as concrete and tangible.

So it might be a sense of identity, it might be some sense of belonging, if you will. So, first thing, let's get clear about what's over and what's not. We need to leave some things behind. And we need to bring some things forward. So the analogy of packing for the road ahead is a good analogy. On a number of occasions, I have found dealing with major changes in work.

And I will create that these junctures of major change, I will create three different stacks of things. So go through old filing systems, and create an archive, pile, shred pile, or a keep pile. And the keep, of course is those are the critical things that we'll need for the next three or four months or a year or two, whatever the timeframe might be. So think about packing for the road ahead. Focus on what we can count on right now. Those would be some of the things that will be the stabilizers those Things that are coming forward.

We don't have enough information. We don't know everything we need to know yet. But we are starting to pull away from that comfortable, familiar old world. So focus on what we can count on right now, to the degree that what you have to let go of is important to you. Watch for a predictable emotional response. this plays out for people who are indeed having to let go of something that perhaps something that they built.

In fact, we've got an entire generation of people working in organizations right now that are having to let go of policies or procedures or product lines or software systems or whatever it is that they built with their own hands 510 1520 years ago when they came into the organization, and to see those things that they were really vested in, slip away into Sort of the ether of the past can be really a daunting and difficult thing. So this predictable emotional response is really the grief cycle. And we're all very familiar with this denial, shock, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It looks neat and tidy written out on a tagline here on the screen. There's nothing really neat and tidy about this, as you well know. But the important thing to think about here is not everybody is going to have a predictable emotional response.

Some people will be relieved that they have to let go, or they frankly, get to let go of some of these old things. So not everybody's gonna relate to this in the same way. So there's some thoughts around separation. So when you think about the changes at work right now, and you think about each of these little dimensions that we've got here in front of you, what might be helpful for you. I would love to say that as soon as you let go of the Old World War, curled rapidly into the brave and New World that we're supposed to get to that the changes aiming us at. However, I would be wrong in saying that.

As we slowly extricate ourselves from the past, things feel increasingly unsettled. And we are starting to get into the world of being literally in between real bridges calls this phase of transition, the neutral zone, but there's really nothing neutral about this, the image on the screen to pick someone between trapezes and it's an interesting and helpful analogy in some ways. When we are in between here, we've got several concerns. I know at least, I have several concerns. One would be, am I still too fat to fly? And secondly, is there a net below me?

So we're first of all concerned about our personal safety. The second thing about this image is In some ways this works in that we were hanging on to a Trapeze and that was the old world. And we can expect to find a new world in the form and shape of the trapeze and ideally it will show up at the right time at the right place. Now, the fact is with trapezes is they're too far apart to be able to hang on to the one from the past, and grab on to the other one, which is, of course, where all the magic in the circus trapeze acts come from. But the reality for some of these changes is, while the old world may indeed have been a crappies, the new world isn't going to be a trapeze, and it's not going to show up on time, in a predictable way.

It may be a little red wagon, it might be a bike, it might be a jet plane, who knows what it will be. And that's part of the challenge of being in between here. Now, you may not know about this, but you do actually because you've been in this time in between Many times in your life, there are two essential challenges that we have to deal with. There's lots of things that we need to deal with getting through this time in between. But the two central challenges have to do with the next, if you will, safety. And the second part of it is what am I here to learn?

How can I explore increase my appetite for creativity and learning and innovation. So let's look at each of these separately. Safety first. And of course, this goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We're not going to be all that ready, willing and able to learn stuff if we're scared to death. So safety first.

Simply accepting the fact that we're in between clean and we're not going crazy and we're probably not alone is a really helpful thing. Doing things we're good at remembering that there are some things whether it's playing a guitar or walking the dog or writing novel are something, do those things that we're good at, because in this time in between, often our self confidence can take a little bit of a hit. So it's important for us to be really clear about our capacity to get work done, it may be helpful to put a pause on additional projects, right now, it might be a good time to try things just on a temporary basis. So maybe it's a temporary budgeting, maybe it's a temporary work arrangement. So just for now, some things that we can count on during this unstable, unsettling time. So we don't want to raise the bar.

We want to be very realistic around our capacity to get work done. And we may find some nagging questions come up. Is this really the work I want to be doing? Is this really the place I want to work? Those questions are Coming up for a reason. And rather than, you know, just dispel them as if we're losing our mind, we're not, let's just let them sit for event.

And maybe we can unpack them and wrestle with some options and so on. Don't make any big commitments right out of the gate. But this is all very normal and natural in this time in between. So if we've got a reasonable level of safety, then we can focus on what are we here to learn? How can we increase our appetite and our willingness and ability to find things, be more creative, be more innovative, simply doing much wandering, trying different things, is fully justified and frankly, it is a huge opportunity for new insights that can take any number of forms. So maybe it's going to a favorite restaurant and ordering something you've never ordered before.

Better yet. Go to a favorite restaurant and have the waiter or waitress order for you. Just try new things. Pick up a book that you wouldn't normally read. Pay attention to strange reoccurring things that seemed to show up. Because in this time in between the messages for the new way, the New World forward as we want to pull and get to that new world quicker, will show up in strange ways that we may not be used to paying attention to.

The other thing that's really important is don't be afraid to ask for help here. We've got to really increase our exposure to situations and people that we normally wouldn't have access to. So go for a little field trip in your organization into a different division or different work group or a different geographical location. Start to hang out with other people that might lead you into different avenues that you've never explored before. What's really critical here and the research on this has been outstanding, actually, we've got to find ways to play more because when we play whatever play means to you could be golf, could be yoga could be whatever it might be. Different parts of our brain start to fire up.

And we will find insights into all kinds of fascinating things. Recently, I've been involved in long distance road, biking, and I find that as I'm out on a training ride, not thinking about work related stuff at all, some idea will pop up into my brain, literally, I'll have to stop and make a note to myself on my phone so I don't forget it. And then I can completely dismiss it again, because I've got it written down and then get back into the Zen like reality of long distance cycling. So there's opportunities to play can be incredibly helpful here. Now, sooner rather than later, if we Do this separation. And in between work well, we will get to integration.

And as we look at this integration, it's helpful to remember the difference between change and transition here change is I have the new title, something starts clear and concrete. I got this new position yesterday. But the transition side of that is, I have this new title. And frankly, I don't have a clue what this really means. It's very vague and elusive. And it will take some time before we really know what this new position is.

And initially, it's going to be fragile. And so and it is a result of this transition process unfolding, not the plan being implemented. And that process started with separation. It's getting through the in between, and there's a few things that we can do to accelerate the integration as it starts to take shape. So pick attention to those reoccurring signs that you are on the right path as you pay attention to signs in that time in between. Some of them will just be lost leaders, if you will.

But there will be some reoccurring signs that will suggest Yes, this is the way be prepared for a couple of steps forward, and then a step or two backwards. I mean, this is not gonna be easy sledding, it will be a little jerky to start with low hanging fruits. An important thing to think about here. So picking low hanging fruit of courses, comes from orchards as you pick the low hanging stuff without the ladder first, because it's the easiest. So what are the easiest things? Or if this is a new job?

What's the easiest things? Who are some of the new, maybe clients or some of the new relationships that you've got to submit? What would be some of the easy friendly ones to start with as this unfolds? Are you really clear on how you have to be different now? Can you name that in terms of behaviors or attitudes If you can do that, you're getting closer indeed to settling into this new world. And if you can't, we're probably not integration yet, we're probably struggling with separation or time in between.

I've gone through these fairly quickly. So what I'd like you to think about for all of those organizational changes that you've got going on in your life right now, what can and will you do to ensure that you will get through all three phases of transition in good shape? Some of this might make perfect sense right now, some of it might not make much sense at all, because you're not there yet. This is a conversation that you can have with your colleagues in the office. And collectively we can look at this and we can support each other as we do this. So as you have this conversation, get this worksheet.

Again, this action planner, I'd like you to make a couple notes to yourself here. So these would be things that not only you Maybe there's some things, certainly weekend news a week, whoever that might be colleagues at work, maybe it's your significant other family members, whoever you're having this conversation with. And you could easily have things to do here in all three of those timeframes within the next week, within a month and perhaps over the long haul. So that's an outline for a transition plan for work related changes. Let's see if we can make some sense of all this. Now, we've just looked at all the organizational changes through the lens of transition.

And perhaps what's become obvious as you've certainly got some work to do around transition related issues for those changes. But it's also become obvious My guess is that those aren't the only changes you've got going on in your life. So what I'd like to do is to help you to create a little bit of a map and share some ideas around staying sane in a constantly changing life. First thing I'd like you to do is to find this worksheet that we've pulled out a while ago now, what's changing in your life worksheet, and it's the place where you wrote down all of the changes you've got going on in your life. Second thing I'd like you to do is to find this worksheet. And this is a transition map, where are you in transition.

The graph here, of course, has the transition process in between the old world and the New World, the journey of transition between those two things. What I'd like you to do is to simply position all of the changes in all aspects of your life somewhere on this map in a way that would reflect where that particular changes in transition for you right now, take a moment, push pause on this and just simply start to sketch out where you think the changes are, they may well be in one particular phase of this journey. They may be bordering across a couple of phases, doesn't make any difference. Just take a moment, push, pause and start to create your map. Here's the next sample of what a map might look like. These were all the changes that were listed in that example, what's changing in your life and their position in a way?

Well, there's some on all phases of this particular map, there seems to be a concentration of changes in that time in between. I'd like you to look at the spread of your changes. And I'd like you to think about what would be ideal if they were concentrated in one particular area? What would be the best area? Or would it be better to have a balance? I've learned over the years that anytime I've got a whole pile of changes in the old world separation and this continuum, the left end of this, I'm in for a long challenging, sometimes somewhat depressing few months is I have to let go of a lot of things.

If, as in this example, there's a number of changes in the time in between. We may feel like very little is stable right now. And if we've got a whole pile of changes over on the right hand side of this map, we may find ourselves getting impatient with those around us who might not be quite so far along. So I'm not sure that a concentration in any one area is a good idea. I like the idea of a balance. But not only a balance, I think there's also something to be said, for taking this picture every four to six months.

And let's make sure that we're doing some things to keep these changes moving from the left side of the map to the right side of the map, so things don't get stalled. So a balance and then a balance in motion over time, I think would be ideal. So whenever we do our math tells you what do we need to do to deal with all of this? Well, here's some ideas. First of all, separate major change from noise. Let's keep things in perspective of the five or 10 15 or 20 changes that you perhaps have going on in your life right now.

My guess is a year from now, you wouldn't remember the majority of them, but some of them you will. So let's not get all bent out of shape around small relatively, what seems to be significant changes at the moment. But in the grand scheme of things, they're really not a big deal. So let's try to keep things in perspective. As often as possible, activate your sense of humor. find opportunities to see the absurdity of the situation around you find ways to laugh.

What's really important in all this, especially with our organizational changes is not to become terminally professional at a terminal professionalism is starting to happen. When someone asks us how we're doing. And our only frame of reference is work. We've become our job. Now, there's one particular generation working organizations today the baby boomers that seem to fall prey to terminal professionalism, more so than any other. And I would suggest that Gen Xers would be the least likely generation to fall prey to this, we are far more than our job and to get all swept up in work is it and that's the only thing I've got going on.

It feels really unstable right now, therefore, I'm very unstable is not a healthy position to be in. For those big changes as we try to keep things in perspective, for the big changes, let's pay attention to the transition. The majority of changes, we won't even worry about transition because it's so small, we will go through it and perhaps not even be aware of it. But for the big transitions, we can get stuck in these and they can be a real challenge. So using some of those ideas that we talked about and building a transition plan that can be very helpful as you pay attention to the big transition. on a regular basis, do things that you like to do treat yourself on a regular basis.

Without adding more stress in your life, whatever it might be. It might be enjoy a really, really good bottle of wine with pizza on a Friday night. It might be take a loved one out for lunch, it might be pamper yourself and go to a spa, whatever it might be. But when we're in major transitions, it's really important to take care of ourselves. along that same line, stay connected to the stuff that's really important matters of the heart and soul, keeping people around you that you love dearly, doing things that are really meaningful to you. There's a delightful quote I came across a number of years ago, and it was helpful at the time.

Something to the effect and I can't remember who's quoted is something to the effect that our anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future rather from wanting to come troller so if we can let the future unfold as it will unfold and stay focused on today, we are going to be a lot more relaxed. And above all else, pay attention to the basics. Perhaps it's just the basics of physical wellness, input, output and rest. So, there's a few ideas around living with change these days. I hope they're helpful. Let's pull all these ideas together that we've been talking about, and finish up an action plan that will really describe what it is we need to do for our road ahead in dealing with constant change.

Some questions for you to consider in terms of what you're going to do. We talked about global organization personal changes that are impacting you right now. Do you have enough information about those things we talked about and mapped out your resiliency. Remember, this is one thing that we have 100% control over So it's a pretty fluid beast. So on a regular basis, what can we do to put a little bit of air in the tire, if you will to increase the overall size? You understand enough about transition?

And if you don't, certainly there's other resources available. If you Google anything by Bill bridges, he's written several good books on transition. Do you have enough ideas if you have some even just a small handful of really good ideas to help you through the transition that's being created as it relates to the organizational changes underway? And lastly, what can you do to keep all of the changes you've got going on in your life right now, moving in the right direction on your transition map. So there's a number of ideas for you to consider. And I'd like you to find this worksheet again, last time making some notes on this action plan.

In response to those questions I just asked you make a couple notes here again, by now you should have a couple people in terms of who else needs to be involved. Could be advocates or resources for you. And you certainly should have some things written in terms of things you will do, as well as maybe some things that we will do whoever the we would be, and also across each of the three timeframes within the next week, within a month or so. And over the long haul, I would encourage you to put a date on this today's date that we're finishing this up, so that you can use it as a point in time, a reference, if you will. So here's some things as we pull this to a close, first of all, thank you very much for joining me on this living with change course.

It's been fun sharing these ideas. Keep your action plan close for the next few days. And there's a couple things you can do with this one, find ways to get it into your calendar. Some of those ideas, put them right into your calendar, so you come across it again. Secondly, find a way to share that action plan with someone else. Simply talking to someone increases the likelihood that you're actually going to follow through on Some of these commitments, so keep that action plan close and don't keep it to yourself.

The article that I wrote that you can download is helpful. It, by all means has some good ideas in it, please enjoy. There's a number of other helpful resources, some of them digital, some of them in hardcopy, at my publishing company last week, press calm. And most importantly, if there's any way I can help further, please just send me an email. I'm hard to catch on the phone, but I get back to emails within 24 hours chris@sundance.ca that's my email address. So, again, thank you very much for joining me, and the best of luck on your drink.