Change can be your transformation

Let’s go in the descending order and let it be open to your choice. Remember the most recent change you were put through. You would have undergone many changes that you didn’t wish to but were inevitable or forced upon you. Can you remember how annoyed you were? You must’ve been frustrated when you were not able to manage the change and the new situation. There may have definitely been many such situations when you didn’t actually like the change but got used to it or still struggling to get used to it or quit something because of the change and many more reactions to it. You will also be having your own justifying reasons to support your reaction to change. Now, you will have a realisation of how difficult change management is. So difficult that it even makes you quit something. That’s where the concept “Change Management” takes its place.

Now let’s get back to the ground level, when you were literally on the ground as a baby. When you were born, you were in the arms of your parents, so comfortable. When days passed, you started crawling. Though you don’t remember what you felt as a child back then, you can be sure that hitting your knees on the ground, getting scratches and dealing with the risk of something sharp pricking your soft palms would have been uncomfortable. Your parents would no more carry you in their arms as often as they did before. You had to face the change and discomfort of crawling. But, at a point you got comfortable with it, got used to it that you were hesitant towards the next change of walking. But, that happened too anyway. You must’ve been struggling to maintain the balance, had the risk of falling down often and at last you were comfortable with walking too. Then came the hard changes of running, cycling, swimming etc.

All those changes looked difficult but now you are grateful for them, right? So, when it comes to change management, the most important thing is to “see the big picture”. When you see the picture, you will know whether it is just an “uncomfortable change” or “remarkable transformation”. When the big picture is worth the discomfort, it IS a remarkable transformation. So, in three steps, it is not possible for you to manage the change, but it is possible for you to get ready to manage the change, which is more important than the actual process.

1. Define- As the first step; understand for yourself what exactly has changed. May be if you had a change of moving from school to college; define what are all the changes. They might be a new environment, new chunk of syllabus, new methodology, new people, new authorities, new culture etc.
2. Analyse- When you have identified the change components analyse and elaborate them as to how they affect you. If its new people, you might be thinking of how to get along with them and losing the comfort of being with your old friends or new place, you might miss the emotional feeling of your school etc.

3. Compare why and why not- Once you analyse the changes, you might find some changes nice to deal with and some changes difficult to deal with. With the difficult changes, think deeply and try to see the “big picture” about what it results in. Compare the result and the difficulty you have to undergo in the change, which is the why and why not. Evaluate them and decide if you have to start managing the change or quit depending on the weightage each side gets.