corporate coping skills
Changing Times How’s this for a wake-up call? One morning you show up at work to find that your company has been acquired, or that your boss has been canned and your unit is being restructured.
Welcome to Corporate America in the year 2001. You’re about to suffer professional upheaval, and your livelihood may depend on how well you handle it.
The first challenge is to deal with your personal feelings, which can prevent you from coping with reality, according to the moderators of a session on change management at the recent National Center for Database Marketing conference.
“Change equals loss,” said James Sunderhauf of Smith Hanley, an executive recruiting firm in Southport, CT. “No matter how positive [the change].”
It also creates trauma, as the other speaker, Data Square LLC’s C. Olivia Rudd, learned from personal experience. She left Mountain View, CA’s Adventa, a Web-based exchange for DM products and services, to work for Fleet Bank, only to find soon after that Fleet had acquired her old firm.
There are three stages of dealing with such changes, according to Rudd. The first is the “ending” period in which the affected person is immobilized by an upheaval at work. Many people suffer from denial, depression and anger at this point.
Assuming you survive (on the job, that is), you then enter the “neutral zone,” where you slowly let go of your old ways. You test different ideas and search for meaning, and try to “merge the past with the present,” Rudd continued.
This leads to a “beginning” phase, in which you’ve internalized the change and can accept reality. At this point, you’re open to new opportunities.
What keeps you steady through all this? According to Rudd, it’s “your indelible identity, the part of you that’s constant,” including your values and spiritual beliefs.
How do you reassure your subordinates?
“Lead by example,” she said. “Subordinates pick up on anxiety and validate other people’s concerns. Help them differentiate what’s changing and what’s not.”
Keep the information flowing. In a data vacuum, people make up their own facts. Humor helps diffuse emotions. Wise managers also create rituals to honor past methods.
And try to remember that “change is inevitable; progress is optional,” Rudd concluded.
