amie@amierickels.com

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Avoid the Four Pitfalls of Change Leadership

Basking in the glow of maturity on the bell curve can easily become a downhill decline that is difficult to reverse. Envisioning change and successfully leading your people through it is the pathway to long term success.  However, many leaders get mired in the process of growth because they do not understand the four stages of change, which are denial, resistance, exploration and acceptance.  Knowing and anticipating these stages will help you avoid the four pitfalls most leaders face.

Gaussian, bell or normal distribution curve

Pitfall number one:  Misreading the cues of denial.

I have seen more leaders get tricked (or smile f*^%$d as some of my clients call it) by denial than I care to count. Denial is always the first stage of change.  This stage is only skipped when someone jumps directly to resistance. People rarely jump directly to acceptance.  However, leaders often misread the cues of denial as acceptance.  This happens because denial can look so much like agreement.  It looks like smiling and nodding.  It carries a “yes, sir” kind of attitude. Your team may tell you, “Sure, I’ll follow up with that client!  Sure, I’ll return those e-mails and implement that new process right now!”  But underneath, they have no intention of changing.  They are trying to avoid discomfort.  They are hoping to avoid the task long enough that you forgot you asked them to do it.  You will know they have moved past denial when they start communicating their resistance.

Pitfall number two:  Reacting in an adversarial manner to resistance.

Resistance is often confused with failure.  Leaders are often surprised to find that their teams don’t automatically love their ideas. Resistance becomes obvious when your team tells you how much they don’t love your vision.  They tell you repeatedly that the the new system will not work.  It is not practical.  The old way is better.  People tend to express their opinions in a much more emotional manner when in resistance.  When strong resistance is expressed, it is often seen as an act of defiance of sabotage.  However, if we shift our perceptual lens a bit, we realize that resistance is actually progress.  In order to resist an idea, you have to really contemplate it and think it through, as opposed to denial which is the complete avoidance of progress.  Resistance is necessary to process through new ideas and should be celebrated.  It means your team is one step closer to exploring and ultimately embracing the new process, service or idea.

Pitfall number three:  Stepping away before exploration leads to a positive outcome.

When adults try something new, it is stressful.  Change often invokes feelings of vulnerability and fears of failure.  The transition from resistance to exploration often requires a leader to say, “I understand that you are uncomfortable and you would rather stick to the old way and that is fine.  But, I want you to give the new way a try.  Just try it and see for yourself the outcome.”  Exploration requires a guiding hand and firm accountability.  Make it clear that all feelings and thoughts are welcome, but they will not change the intended path.  If necessary, sit with your team and have them walk through the new process with you.  Do everything you can to ensure that trying the new process leads to a positive outcome.  If your team tries the new idea and find on their own that it is a better practice, they will quickly adopt the change.  If however, exploration leads to a negative outcome, your team will move back to denial or resistance before giving exploration a second chance.

Pitfall number four:  Forgetting to celebrate a successful change.  

Once your team has accepted the change and adopted it as a regular daily practice, be sure you take time to celebrate the accomplishment.  Each new experience we have builds neural pathways.  Celebrating reinforces those pathways and solidifies the positive outcome in our neural network.  In addition, the more we try new things, the more comfortable we become trying new things.  This practice will also help your team to be more flexible with future changes and to move through the cycles more quickly.

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Your Brain Doesn’t Want You To Change, But I do.

Have you ever really wanted to change something about yourself, but you really struggled to do it?  You set resolutions.  You made great progress for a couple weeks and then you lost all motivation to keep moving forward. Maybe you wanted to be more timely with deadlines.  Maybe you wanted to be more vocal and engaged with leadership discussions at work.  Maybe you struggled to turn off work at night and be present with your family. We often start with a conscious desire to change behavior that is getting us bad results, but despite our  best efforts, those habits prevail.  Why is that?  Are you simply a loser with no willpower?  Or is it possible that you are using the wrong part of your brain to change your behavior?

Many of us believe the illusion that our conscious minds are in control and willpower is the best way to change a bad habit.  What would you say if I told you that your conscious mind only controls 2 to 4% of what you do?  Is your mind blown?  (Pun intended.)  How is that possible, you ask? Thankfully, our bodies do millions of tasks per second without our conscious awareness or input.  Need to breathe?  No worries.  Your brain is taking care of it.  Need your heart to pump?  No worries.  Your brain is taking care of it.  In the case of bodily functions, this automation serves us well and allows us to place our focus on higher cognitive tasks.  When it comes to behavior, though, the unconscious brain can be quite limiting.

When we are young, we learn emotions, attitudes and behavior from our environment.  Neurons in our brain, called mirror neurons, allow us to mimic the behavior of those around us and shortcut our learning process.  For example, watching our parents talk to us as infants engages the mirror neurons and allows our brains to pattern language. When we have healthy, well adjusted individuals in our life, we learn healthy behavior patterns.  However, when our parents, guardians or teachers have behavioral limitations, we learn those as well.

Fast forward to an executive who avoids facing conflict in the office.  He cannot stand the thought of not being liked. Rather than facing conflict when it arises, he avoids the conversation entirely.  His team is craving constructive feedback; but he is unable to give it.  Thus, his team is not able to meet their highest capabilities because they are not being encouraged to move past their limitations.

The pattern for this behavior was very likely established in early childhood.  As a young boy, this leader learned that being liked and being popular were more important than being honest.  Leadership and parenting are very closely linked in the brain.  We often unconsciously lead exactly as we were parented.  Or, if we disagree with how we were parented, we lead in opposition to that parenting.  Either way, the behaviors that drive our actions often arise from unconscious learned patterns that are difficult, if not impossible, to change with willpower.

When we do try to change that behavior, our reptilian brain fights that change with force.  When we try to change, our brain feels stressed and releases adrenaline and cortisol.  A thermostat mechanism in our brain works to return us to our comfortable, programmed state.  Our brain searches the environment for feedback that changing is a bad idea or will yield us bad results.

So, what’s a leader to do when she wants to change?  Give up?  Blame her parents and move on?  Not at all.  All we must do is shift the approach we are using to change the behavior.  First, we must bring awareness to the unconscious behavior.  Once we are aware of the pattern, then we can use tools like affirmations and meditation to change the brains structure and support the learning of a new automated behavior.