KateNasser.com

Most leaders trigger change. Some are constantly pulling the trigger and often with disastrous results. If you are a leader who craves change, ask yourself:

Do you see change fatigue?

or

Think it’s all change resistance?

I see a great deal of change resistance as I consult to organizations. Most leaders and consultants focus on this for it is the big challenge of moving an organization forward.


I also see some leaders whose leadership philosophy breeds change fatigue. They are either very high drivers or high idea generators and often quite unaware that they are pulling the trigger far too often.


They see change fatigue as just more change resistance and continue on unchanged (ironically enough) with the same leadership behaviors.


They also convince themselves that because their goal is success, the difference between change fatigue and change resistance is irrelevant. Quite the opposite is true.

Change resistance occurs when people are still committed to the organization albeit the current picture.

---

Change fatigue can sever their ability to be committed to the organization and redirect it to individual survival.

Moreover, change fatigue can neutralize your strongest proponents of change — those that aren’t resisting. Even they feel lost, disconnected, and incapable of achievement. Once this engine of change is shot, you and your organization can achieve very little.

Change fatigue will most likely occur when your leadership vision is driven by the treasure hunt syndrome or when your vision constantly changes.

The leaders and teams that report to you barely start to work on one initiative or direction when you reset and redirect. Although some of this happens in every organization, as a leadership style it can leave all exasperated, fatigued and disconnected.

The biggest risk of change fatigue is that organizational performance suffers. As a leader you are focusing on future success while the floor you are standing on is sagging beneath you. The new one you are trying to lay has poor supports as well.

• Your direct reports begin to delegate some of their responsibilities to their teams whether they are skilled or experienced enough to handle it or not. The outcomes are substandard.
• Collaboration and teamwork erode because the current path becomes a grapevine of misunderstandings.
• Their exasperation undermines their respect and trust for you and your leadership.

Change Loving Leaders — Prevent Change Fatigue!

1. Build the culture that goes with your vision. If you as a leader crave high innovation and change, then inspire a fun, creative, learn-from-mistakes type culture.

   Do you encourage all the employees to noodle new ideas? Participating in creativity breeds a more positive feeling about change.

   Or are you mistakenly reserving that privilege for yourself or a select few and holding all others responsible for the implementation and delivery? High driver leaders are prone to this misstep.




2. Ensure you understand what it takes to implement. Employees who shine at implementation and operation must see that your vision sees the reality of effort needed. You need these employees that can actually plan, build, or coordinate the building of those new processes, products or services. Do they see that you value and respect their talent for staying the course to the end to make these changes happen?




3. Procure extra resources to implement all your new ideas or make clear what can truly be pushed aside. If the myriad of ideas and changes you envision are to happen, then back fill the operations with additional contractors to truly allow the full time staff to work on the exciting new changes.




4. Communicate with the employees not to the employees. That does not mean they can set any vision they wish. Yet, the dialogue helps you to see a clearer picture of what’s needed for innovation and gives them a better understanding of what is possible going forward.

Knowing the difference between change resistance and change fatigue strengthens your success quotient.

- Fatigue is something you cause which can even crush the spirit of your change proponents.

- Resistance occurs within employees. You can ease and eliminate it with great communication, clear vision, and active employee engagement.

Address change resistance — prevent change fatigue. Fatigue is a pricey diversion with long lasting effects.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
Leaders, Leading Change Requires Networking Our Inspiration

5 Keys to Succeeding with Leaders Who Crave Change

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Behind the labels of personality types lie the secrets to more profitable leadership and teamwork.

Workplace leaders often assess team member personality types — amiable, expressive, analytic, driver — and then get busy and do little with it. As I work with them and their teams, I highlight the profitable secrets they can tap.

Personality type impacts understanding and outcomes of leaders and teams. It guides you on how best to engage employees. It can make or break employee ability to thrive in organizational change.


Secrets of Personality Types:

Employee Engagement

1. Amiable personality types come alive through personal connection. If you want to tap the profit they can bring to the business, build interpersonal bonds with them. A just the facts approach makes them feel lonely and demoralized. You do not have to be their best friend yet if you skip the bonding you skip the profit. In today’s world of remote technology, remember to connect with amiable types face to face or on the phone. Video conference with remote amiable type employees for a winning solution!




2. Expressive personality types shine in and through communication. Two-way communication, a critical skill of any good leader, brings these people to full contribution. If you are fast paced, results-oriented and minimize communication, these expressive types feel shunned. You are leaving the profit by the wayside.




3. Analytic personality types function in an ordered thought process. They have much to contribute if you always allow for some ordered discussion. If you are brainstorming, take a small pause to capture the analytic’s ideas. If you are a highly creative leader, summarize your thoughts in an ordered manner after your creativity. Skip the order and you leave analytic types frustrated and the value they provide, suppressed.




4. Driver personality types crave end results and achievement. Give them the big picture, highlight critical milestones and risk factors, and then let them deliver. If you micro-manage them or ask them to have lengthy discussions on non-critical factors, they feel trapped and repressed. Although many other types dislike micro-management, driver types resent it for you are keeping them from the brass ring! They may look for a new position that gives them a real shot.

---

During Times of Great Organizational Change

1. Double driver leaders intent on pushing through massive change often overwhelm the other personality types because they focus only on the results. They issue announcements instead of holding all hands meetings. They tell themselves it’s all for organizational results. Yet the methods they use are self-serving and fulfill their driver personality type needs. Ironically, they are leaving the profit of personality types untapped and results suffer.




2. Likewise, amiable type leaders can get caught up in feelings and bonding sacrificing the organizational change goal. It doesn’t have to be that way. I have seen amiable leaders use their incredible bonding skills to rally support for the change and tap everyone’s talent to make it happen.




3. Analytic type leaders may falter in organizational change if they demand too much information before making decisions. In this case, analytics do well to trust the other personality types on the team and profit from their decision skills.




4. Expressive type leaders often shine in organizational change because they are natural communicators. They must remember to engage in two-way communcation. Profit from the analytic, amiable, and driver types’ ideas by remembering to let them express!

---

To engage employees and lead them in tough times of change, tap the profit in their personality types.

If instead you revel in the comfort of your own personality type, you leave the profit for the (next) adaptable leader.


Related post: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

Leaders, are you conflicted when your best performer is change resistant? As I highlight a change resistor to leaders who engage my consulting and training, many have said to me “but this person is our best performer!”


Behind that short reply from leaders is great risk to the success that lies ahead. Because of this, I ask leaders, can a change resistor get you to Oz? No and neither can denial.

Leading to Oz

1. Leaders, your shock and disappointment are normal. Your denial, deadly. Any employee can be a change resistor. Occupational performance does not guarantee change-ability.




2. Be ready for a show down in the evil forest. Some top performers believe they are indispensable and can resist the change. Before initiating significant change, know what internal and external resources you have to keep everything moving ahead. It also helps the resistors see they are not indispensable.




3. Replace your fear of performance loss with courage and belief in your vision. Most team members will buy into and even contribute to organizational change if they see that it is not debatable and understand what the vision means for them.




4. Redefine performance to include change-ability. Long term success means adapting to change. Discuss this with your team members and let them know that their skill is valuable if they apply it to a changing vision.




5. Top performers and high achievers sometimes want an extremely clear picture of the change before they buy into it because they want to be seen as a high achiever throughout the process. That is not always available. Other high achievers trust in their ability to succeed even in ambiguity.

   Let everyone know that you trust in their ability and know their will be ups and downs throughout the change. Commitment and focus is the key — not perfection.

Lead change with vision, courage, and communication.

What other factors contribute to a top performer resisting change instead of helping to lead change?

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011-2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. Leading change, employee engagement, customer service experience, and teamwork. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Leaders, who lead change well during tough times, filter out needless noise. Their experience is the filter. It enables leadership without the bullshit.

New leaders, many in middle management, face an ironic challenge. They are building experience — the filter — while trying to filter!

I feel for new leaders and consult on the great challenges they face to give their experience a boost. They deserve a just-in-time filter for needless noise when leading change.

So here it is — a guide to leadership without the bullshit. Help new leaders. Add your experience in the comments section below to strengthen this filter even further.

Image by: Leo Reynolds


10 Point Leadership Experience Booster

Leading change in tough times …

1. The status quo doesn’t really exist. Things are always changing. Don’t debate if change should occur. It is occurring. Communicate, listen, and engage the team to create success together.




2. Convert why questions to what questions to filter the noise. Questions that start with the word what generate tangible dialogue and understanding.
   Rephrase why is this happening to …

   ---

   What conditions have changed and are feeding the need for more change?
   What are we facing in the future and how do we prepare?
   What roads can we take to get there?




3. Acknowledge the struggle don’t encourage it. Acknowledging the struggle that people have with change is helpful if you also ask them how they will get through it. Else they think it is your job to eliminate their struggle and you enable their resistance.




4. Encourage success by moving forward. Don’t confuse endless talk about the struggle with being an empathetic leader. If you want to be a caring leader make the unknown, known, by moving everyone forward sooner than later.




5. Negativity and positivity are both contagious. It’s pretty clear which one will create success. Admittedly people don’t have to be singing and smiling all the time. If they are very engaged in the change and venting some along the way, it’s natural.
   Yet constant complaining will retard progress and ignoring it is a classic mistake. The power of negativity is there even if you deny it. Call it out and note the impact of it. Identify what is needed instead.




6. Morale matters. Celebrate talents applied to the common purpose. You will see untapped potential materialize into unexpected wins. Even if your boss is a results-only person, always remember that morale impacts results. It is needed. It’s not a waste of time.




7. Perfectionism kills momentum. If you or team members suffer from the blight of perfectionism, override it with the motto make it work. It is rare that you will have all the information, optimal conditions, maximum resources, or complete understanding. When team members raise these points as reasons not to proceed, involve them in risk assessment and problem solving.




8. Personality type differences change from obstacles to advantages with simple training. To ensure that your diverse team members mesh even in tough times, hold a personality assessment workshop before the stress hits. Focus on how to adapt to behaviors and avoid using the results as labels. Make it fun and it boosts morale.




9. Hedging on difficult or necessary conversations confuses people; it doesn’t console them. Give employees the gift of being clear. Honest focused dialogue shows respect for them as adults and builds respect for you as a leader.




10. Redirect extremes into critical thinking focused on results. Tough times provoke stress and emotion that yield rigid outlooks and absolute opinions. Facilitate discussions that reawaken a realistic mindset and empower a can-do approach.

---

What have you learned from needless bs at work that leaders can use to filter out future noise?

What will you add to this experience booster? What is your #11?

Thanks in advance for adding your insight here.


From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011-2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and people-skills keynotes on leading change, teamwork, employee engagement, and customer service experience. She turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Fill the gaps of change and diversity with business wins!

On more than one occasion as an organizational consultant, I have detected hidden workplace change resistance long before the leaders and managers. They asked me later, how did you know?

It got me thinking about how I spot change resistance lurking in the cubicles.

I detect clues much like Sam Spade.
I spot …

1. Words that are contradicted by actions or inaction.
2. Words or actions that seem forward focused while anchoring everyone in the status quo.
3. Questions that are actually saying no. These are resistance statements in disguise.
4. What doesn’t fit or make sense given incentives, choices, and conditions.

How can you become the Sam Spade of change resistance?

---

Give yourself permission. It’s both OK and essential that you see the reality. Sharpening your sight doesn’t make you a tyrant or a cynic.

Be ever present and conversational. Your conversations, formal and informal, will produce more clues. Presentations where you ask for questions are only a small piece of the picture. To see a more detailed picture, get a closer view.

Trust your ability to handle change resistance else you might overlook a clue that’s right in front of you.

Overcome any fear of conflict otherwise you may block from your mind what you find undesirable. As leaders, your inner strength will guide you through discomfort and give your teams a beam of support during the change.

---

Your detective skills help all involved in the change. They unearth obstacles, concerns, and energy drains that everyone can address once out in the open.

Contrarily, overlooking resistance, avoiding conflict, being distant during the angst and stress, tells your teams you don’t believe in the change. If you don’t believe in it, why should they?

Lead change with vision far and near. Like a detective you will unearth both obstacles and success — with and for your teams.

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach


How have you detected hidden change resistance? What specific clues got your attention and how did you handle them?

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into organizational success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with action and teamwork. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

As a corporate leader or a team member, you are hired for your strengths. There are even established respected programs like Marcus Buckingham’s Now Discover Your Strengths to help you identify and hone them and those of your team.

Yet for true corporate and business success, discover and develop the strength of balance.

The strengths that are your extremes deliver current success. They become a great risk in times of change when those strengths no longer serve the business.  Ever wonder why businesses that initiate major change also initiate or experience turnover?  The leaders and their teams cannot adapt.  They did not develop counter strengths.  They do not have the strength that comes from balance.

The strength of balance gives you long term success with lower risk.  It is not however without cost.   You must spend time and effort to learn counter strengths while working on and enjoying current success.

Very successful people always do this to prepare for the future.


Now Develop Their Strength of Balance!

If you are great technically, discover and develop your people skills.

If you are generally an interactive listener, learn how to listen to introverts.

If you are quiet, practice expressing.

If you are a team member, discover your leadership skills.

If you are a tough practical leader, learn how to inspire.  If you are a soft-hearted leader, learn how to assert.

If you are a big picture person, develop some attention to details.

If you are a speaker, learn how to write.

If you are a creative thinker, develop critical thinking.


If you work with those your own age, learn about other generations.

If you are mono-cultural, discover other worlds.

If you are very stressed out, change something to reduce the tension.  You need the energy to prepare for the future!


What do you think? Can you and your team members always stretch and grow to stay vital in the face of any change? Or is it a waste of time? Some claim it is the same as trying to turn an eagle into a dove. What say you?

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach works extensively with technical organizations on thriving in change, masterful teamwork, and memorable customer service. See this site for more information.

Are you slow to change even when things are bad?  Thriving in change is not as complicated as you think. Those who thrive in change act on one belief: scale down to step up.

Scale Down to Step Up

1. Abandon absolutes of your thoughts and make space for new ideas.  I always saw myself as a speaker and not a writer.  I now do both.




2. Move constant complainers off the team to boost morale and productivity of committed workers. The re-energized team will produce better results.




3. Reduce false hope that things will change and increase actions to make things change. Take small steps forward. You lessen fear of mistakes and build self empowerment.




4. Eliminate relationships that focus on your weaknesses and step up to supportive connections. I walked away from a 15 year friendship when  I admitted that she was a wart on the spirit of life.




5. Give up comforts that keep you in the present and adopt new comforts that move you forward. I scaled down cable TV. I found all types of fun online learning and discovered more time for interesting new friends and Latin dancing.

Thriving in Change. Throw off the old myth: better the devil you know.  Habit makes the current pain seem easier for now.  But thought-filled action brings new found possibilities and a new found confidence.

Best wishes for your future. I am here as your GPS and catalytic force.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. For 23 years, she has turned interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer testimonials and results.

When I was a senior in high school, my father told me to take typing “because all girls should know how to type.”  WHAT, I screamed.  As I raged on about this remark and swore never to take typing, my mother offered another view. “You are going to college next year right?” Yes, I shot back.  “Well how will you do your papers if you can’t type?  It has nothing to do with being a girl.”

Despite my father’s attitude which made me scream, I did take typing as a graduating senior and my fingers still scream the keyboard at 90 words a minute.  I typed all my papers quickly in college while many pulled all-nighters. Moreover, I made money typing others’ papers from their handwritten drafts. 

After college I took a job as a computer programmer. My fingers screamed the keyboard at 90 words a minute.  As other programmers hunted and pecked their code, I took a longer lunch.  After my IT jobs, I started my own training/consulting practice where once again my fingers screamed the keyboard typing reports, email, and now for tweets on Twitter and discussions on LinkedIn.

Thankfully, I had seen the wisdom in my mother’s perspective.  Moreover, I learned something far more important than typing.  On your life’s journey, what sounds like bad advice isn’t always bad.  How you hear it makes the difference. You owe it to yourself to consider ideas before you make a choice.  This will affect your personal relationships, your team efforts at work, the customer experiences you deliver, the sales you make, and most importantly your life choices.

What colors your ability to listen, assess, and find a hidden pearl of wisdom?

• Dislike for the messenger’s attitude and other views
• Your map that doesn’t allow for a detour
• Internal noise – your thoughts saying no instead of hmm … what if
• Baggage and bad memories
• Fear
• Short-sighted view of life

How many people (older than Gen Y) imagined this online life at the keyboard?  How many including Gen Y imagined this terrible economic crisis?  Yet can you remember your grandparents saying save for a rainy day?  Did you dismiss it as old-fashioned and irrelevant?

Have you ever heard the expression: It’s amazing how wise your parents become as you get older?  That isn’t to say you should cling to the past.  Rather as you live in the present, improving how you hear things can open your life to new horizons.  You may discover an idea that will change your life.  

When I was unhappy with my IT jobs and struggling to create a happy life, a career counselor assessed my picture and told me that I wanted to be self-employed.  I was baffled and thought she’s crazy.  Then I thought, hmm …what if? 

I explored it, researched it, planned it and did it!  That was 20 years ago and I never looked back. She was right and it changed my life.  Thank you, Paulette Zimmerman, for that pearl of wisdom and I thank myself for thinking hmm… what if?

What advice would you give graduating seniors from high school, tech. school, and college?

I’ll start the list and ask that you add your advice below in the comments field.

• Learn as much as you can — everywhere you can. You never know what will become a pearl!
• Build fun and responsibility into your life starting today.
• Associate with people of all ages – your age, older, and younger. Pearls of wisdom are hidden in others’ experiences.
• Create your life with vision, persistence, patience, and the disciplined action to get there.

Now it’s on to my next hmm… what if? 

Update on this post: A couple of days after I wrote this article, I found an article in USA Today by Alan Webber, entitled “Hey, Grads, It’s Time to Write New Rules”.   He straight out says never stop learning.   He has published a book with many more rules called Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Yourself. 

Parents, the book might be a great family read and discussion to mentor your teens and college grads into adult life! 

If you wish to share this info on other blogs and websites, please credit this URL.  I welcome your additions to the advice list in the comments field below and welcome your tweets at http://twitter.com/KateNasser.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom.

Many thanks for your pearls,

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

As a coach, I specialize in transitions to help professionals meet some specific goal.  The transitions are from one behavior to another to achieve something new, different, or more.  

Some recent examples: 

• A Help Desk manager who wanted to be more assertive after receiving performance feedback in that light.
• A manager who wanted and needed better presentation skills for many aspects of her job.   She found the coaching fun and productive. 
• A systems analyst who wanted to relocate from the east coast to New Mexico and live a very different life.  She did not know where to begin to have this new life.   She is there now!
• A big thinker type – great at generating ideas, brainstorming, and creativity – needed to communicate with more focus.  The big thinker now uses an email template we created to communicate for impact. 

Why tap a coach?  Transitions from one behavior to another require more than just learning a new skill.    For most, it means overcoming blocks that stop learning and change.   There are many books out there about changing your career, your life, your outlook.  Ever read one and still no change?  As a coach, I inspire you to action!

ASK Kate!  This blog gives you the opportunity to pose your transition questions to me directly and get transition steps at no cost — until the end of March 2009.   I have extended this offer through the end of April 2009 to include followups to the International Help Desk Conference.   Many don’t want to post their questions here preferring instead to email me.   Either way is fine.

Let’s get started … Kate Nasser

Fun Facts to Find Comfort with Change

Much of my work in speaking, consulting, and training produces growth and change.  In April, I will speak at the International Help Desk 2009 Conference on the topic Leading Change and Neutralizing Resistance in Customer Service & Help Desks.   It is always a hot topic because so many humans have difficulty dealing with change.  Most see it as a loss.  In a future article on this blog, I will address this topic more seriously. 

 

On this grey winter day, I would rather share fun facts to find comfort with change.  I hope you enjoy.

 

(You are welcome to share the content of this blog with your colleagues and friends, with other blogs, and in other articles.  I ask only that you credit me as the source with this URL: www.smartpeopleskills.com).

 

Change is going on at this very moment.  Even if you experience change as a loss, you don’t stress out over it when you aren’t aware of the loss. 

1.       “Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. That works out to about 1.5 pounds each year, so the average person will lose around 105 pounds of skin by age 70.“ Source:http://health.howstuffworks.com/16-unusual-facts-about-the-human-body2.htm

You don’t shed tears over shedding your skin do you?  No.  Although I would  like to know where all those skin particles go.

2.       ­“Did you know that you get a new stomach lining every three to four days? If you didn’t, the strong acids your stomach uses to digest food would also digest your stomach.” Source:http://health.howstuffworks.com/16-unusual-facts-about-the-human-body2.htm

After reading this, would you resist the change and try to keep your old stomach lining?

3.       “­You may not want to swim in your spit, but if you saved it all up, you could.  In a lifetime, the average person produces about 25,000 quarts of saliva — enough to fill two swimming pools!” Source:http://health.howstuffworks.com/16-unusual-facts-about-the-human-body2.htm

I’ll pass on saving up saliva.  Thanks.

There are positive changes that stress people out as well.

1.       Starting a new fantastic job

2.       Getting married

3.       Buying a house/relocating

4.       Becoming a parent

In these situations, you are aware of the change and often not aware of the loss.  So ironically, people frequently say: “Why am I unhappy?  I’m supposed to be overjoyed!”  If you were unhappy in your job or were unemployed, a new fantastic job should mean happiness.  Yet in the process of learning the new job, you face temporary dips in productivity, in feeling expert, and in confidence.  These momentary losses create stress. 

 

Of course, it wouldn’t be an article on change without quoting the axiom: People fear the unknown.  Really?  Try this silly little exercise.  Close your eyes and imagine all the things in life you don’t know.  Do you feel afraid?  Probably not.  In fact, some people find the unknown to be exciting. 

 

What many people fear is the unknown outcome of a change.  Will I succeed in this higher level job? Will I lead this new organization well after all the layoffs?   Will I find people I like when I relocate?  Will I be able to make the mortgage payments?  Will it resell at a profit?

 

Change the words and conquer the fear.  Years back I made the decision to leave my corporate job, by choice, and start my own business.  Happy time, right?  Yes until the full reality stared me in the face.  All the “will I” fears noted above crept into my brain.  I then switched the words from will I to what and how.  What do I need to do?  What workshops will organizations buy more frequently?  How will I differentiate my services?  What is the biggest success I can picture?  How far can I go?  What and how created action that transformed the fear of the unknown outcome into actual outcomes and success.

 

Whether you are leading a change, swept up in a change, or choosing a change, action is as essential to your success as  the air you breathe is to your survival.  If however you get stuck in fear, I recommend two powerful classic books to move you to action: Transitions by William Bridges and The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino. 

 

What else helps you feel comfortable with change?  Please share your comments in the field below.

 

Visit this blog again for much more on thriving in change. Subscribe to the RSS feed to receive action alerts!

 

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

Speaking and Training on Customer Service, Teamwork, Thriving in Change

908.595.1515 (USA)

Thanks for 20 years and counting …

MA Organizational Psychology

Continuous Learner