Tina Simpson, JD, MSPH
Principal
And NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Change is Hard – like really hard.
I say this from personal and present experience.
Like many other people, I enter 2022 with great plans for a year of transformation – driven by discarding a multitude of bad habits – habits that I know do not serve me but that I just can’t seem to shake. I ended my holiday celebrations by virtuously removing all (delicious but not particularly healthy) temptations from my kitchen – and then from the not-so-secret backup cookie stashes squirreled away in my office. (How they were removed is neither here nor there.)
And then I planned for my first day of the new year – January 4th, a date selected over January 1st because, this isn’t my first rodeo and I know that, when embarking on a quest for transformation and improvement, a new you can’t start on a weekend – you have to set yourself up for success in these things. In this instance success looks like (consistently) early and unrushed mornings, featuring yoga (as opposed to a halfhearted stretch) and veggie smoothies. This would also be the year when me and my too-close-friend sugar would set some boundaries, and maybe I would reconnect with an old acquaintance, Leafy Greens.
Therefore, when the alarm came on Monday morning I bounded up and followed the schedule and goals punctiliously and with great satisfaction, checking them off on the accountability calendar I had carefully crafted the evening before. Tuesday followed with similar success and happy checkmarks. Wednesday was a different matter.
It was a cold, gray morning, and the distance from my warm bed and my workout clothes on the chair stretched in my imagination.
So, I hit snooze.
Repeatedly.
The effects of this missed checkmark trickled down throughout my day. Later, as I rushed to start the first Zoom meeting of the day from my home office (yoga routine and breakfast abandoned), I spared a thought, mournfully, for how easy it was to fall back into old routines – even when in the first flush of satisfied novelty that comes with good intentions and a punctilious plan.
Since then, the morning battles continue. I win most (by the slimmest margin) but lose some. It is a case, of two steps forward and one step back, and then, maybe standing still for the next few beats. I remind myself that this is the way it is with most things in life.
I share this story not because there is anything new in my experience or observations, but rather, because I think it is something that is familiar to everyone reading this: Change is hard, like really hard. As a consulting firm committed to Big Ideas and leveraging positive change throughout our communities, every project that we are called in on deals, in some way or another, with this foundational issue: how do we navigate, implement, or (in the rare case, usually predicated by an unwelcome regulatory challenge) forestall change. But we are not, by profession, unique: we are all confronted with this challenge – the threat or promise of change – throughout our day. But we tend not to spare too much thought on the actual mechanics of change, particularly when dealing at an organizational or macro level. As one friend observed, when it comes to organizational change, we tend to think of it as a black box – you put in the inputs, plans, and good intentions at one end – the change-meister pulls the curtain and waves his wand – and the desired output comes out the other end to great audience applause.
But that is not how it happens. Not when it comes to personal habits (despite the best color coded accountability calendars) or organizational processes and cultures.
Change is hard; there is no escaping that. However it is also, often, necessary and desirable. In all things, knowledge is power. It is our hope that in highlighting what we have learned and the tools that we have found successful in implementing or facilitating organizational change, that we will help you in your #2022 organizational goals.
That is why, this year, a goal for us at Atrómitos is to practice greater transparency as it relates to change management and leadership, in part through this running series: And Now for Something Completely Different (with a tip of the hat and ‘nudge nudge wink wink say no more’ to Monty Python). Throughout this series, we will examine some of the science of behavior and organizational change, sharing some change readiness evaluation frameworks, and diving into my personal favorite theme of adaptive leadership.
In the interim, since change management is built on concrete, tangible actions, and in recognizing the go-getters reading this article who want to begin now, I close this beginning of our time together with a few recommendations on resources to review before our series continues:
Recommended Resources
- The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Ronald Heifetz et al)
- Weiner, B.J. A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Sci 4, 67 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67
- And (my favorite) the wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes