IT PRO: Blogs: Jason Slater: Hey, you are a bad employee because YOU don't like change!

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Hey, you are a bad employee because YOU don’t like change!

Posted in General on March 11, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I believe it is a common misconception that people don’t like change. I think that what people generally object to is change being blindly foisted upon them. If I get to work and I’m told “Hey this has changed and you now do this” I’m less likely to embrace the change as I would if I got to work and someone said “Hey, you know that change we’ve been working on - let’s kick it in today”. I don’t mean involving people in a purely superficial way either but really engaging people (and I’m not talking about team building weekends either!). If you give a new user a computer, what is the first thing they are likely to do? You got it, change something. Be it the wallpaper, the icons, the screen saver time out and hopefully their password. We all like to do this because it makes us feel more comfortable and in control. There may be technical reasons for not doing this (allowing users to set screen savers on thin clients) but on the whole giving a sense of control adopts a positive attitude to change.

We are changing all the time, everything around us is experiencing constant change. However, if you decide to blindly change something without involving people (even those on the periphery of the perceived change) you can bet that trouble will ensue shortly after. Of course communication is the answer but it needs to be handled sensitively. Talk to people, keep people in the loop even if they are not directly involved and if something is confidential then keep it that way. When we are at work we want to be part of something, to feel that our voice counts for something and that we are making a difference, even if we’re not seemingly directly involved. I’m not talking about going over the top either and blasting people with memo’s - just talk to people like their opinion matters.

What do you think?

A similar discussion can be found on my other Blog at Creative design by committee is OK - but who wants OK?