Change – Managing Change

So, you started as a young football player who was always on the fringes of first-team action. Then one day, manager calls you and tells you that you will start the next game.

You are overjoyed, elated at the thought, yet nervous. You start to talk to senior players on how best to handle the pressure, and they tell you not to worry. ‘It will be alright’, they said, ‘just play your game and enjoy yourself’.

You play the game, and enjoyed yourself as advised. And with it came a sterling performance from you; maybe even a goal or two to boot.

Overnight, you have become the toast of the media and fans, and suddenly your status changed.

The change is there! You are a new person. How do you handle it?

At work in the corporate world, you are a team player in a project group. And one day, senior manager decides to change you to Project Lead, or higher…maybe even General Manager of your company.

Overnight, your status has changed. You are no longer a member of the project team – you are the boss; boss over the people with whom you worked previously as peers.

The change, again….and you need to manage it.

Former player in a football club gets appointed head coach, and he is coach and manager over some players alongside whom he played even recently.

His status has changed, and this needs be managed.

Many people go through the phase of ‘change’. In fact, it has been said that the only thing that is constant, is change. We all go through change.

Some of us emerge from amidst our peers and grow taller in status. And it becomes really delicate. Because we suddenly come under scrutiny and every move we make will be judged on the premise of ‘he’s doing it because he is now the boss’.

Some of us, truly, become different human beings once a slight change comes in our status, and what we used to tolerate pre-status, now becomes unacceptable.

Some, who gain power in political situations, experience change. They were ordinary members before, and stand election and win, or get picked to senior political positions. They change, and sometimes, many become unrecognisable from what they were known to be previously.

Change breeds arrogance many times. The shoulders automatically and subconsciously rise, there is a different kind of walk and then a downward look at everyone else who has not risen to get to where the changed person is.

Change can also be a catalyst of bitterness.

Someone whose status falls from good job to no job at all….finds himself in a situation where he can not deal with the change, and sees everyone above him as unduly fortunate or just worthy of resentment, even if they were not responsible for their predicament.

Change is dangerous, but it is inevitable.

As long as we continue to soldier on in whatever we engage in, change will always occur.

Managing that change is the real test of success and true leadership.

We must stay humble no matter what the change we find in us.

Because regardless of the new status, the new title, the many awards; you are still the same person. That has not changed. And if you have not changed outwardly, try not to let your inner self change.

Humility is key. We must all embrace humility. We will have respect for our status, and the tenets or ethics of the new position we find ourselves in, but we stay humble at all times – down to earth, and keeping our friends as they were.

When the case is the reverse, and negative change occurs, we must embrace the new status and try not to be bitter about it. We can not go into bitterness or resentment against those who are in different and more positive circumstances.

Again, humility is important. An ability to accept the change and be pragmatic about it; but to deal with people with the same respect and regard that we did, when we were on that pedestal from where we had dropped.

We are still the same. The person inside is the same, regardless of change.

And remember, because life is fluid and the people within are just the same, there is nothing that rules out the fact that your paths could cross again, in different circumstances, en route to you coming down from the pedestal of pride; or moving back up from the temporary stool of humility you might have found yourself occupying.

Change is inevitable, and we all go through it. Managing that change, though, is the task that we must all embrace and handle positively.