Leadership and Change

I'm glad to see your thoughts on this subject. While I see your viewpoint, I personally don't believe that resistance to change has anything to do with the advancement of technology. I think it's always been a part of society and an ongoing challenge.

I recall people I've worked with over the years who had absolutely revolted whenever there was a change at a time when change didn't happen that often (I'm referring to many many years ago - pre-computer days). People tend to get so familiar with processes and feel so comfortable that they sometimes worry they won't be very good at their jobs if they have to learn a new way of doing things. Sometimes it's just laziness. Perhaps the change involves moving to a new location, which is disruptive - and people don't want to go through that trouble. It's extra effort that increases our stress levels when change happens.

Having said that, we do all indeed have higher expectations due to technology. It is an oft-discussed topic in several courses here on campus. Leaders have higher expectations of workers, and workers have higher expectations of leaders. We all have higher expectations of service organizations, retail, banking, financial investments -- we even expect our tax return refunds to be deposited in our bank account within a week's time (because we know it's possible). And how about the worker (not a knowledge worker) who discovers the change is his job moving to India, because it can now be accomplished remotely via technology?

Technology, while providing many efficiencies, has also increased our society's stress level and placed burdensome expectations on everyone. The more we are able to accomplish due to technology, the more that is expected. We can never keep pace. It's almost frightening.

"How do we encourage and appreciate change in a society where the solution is constantly at our fingertips or just a click away?" Reality is that once people are told change is coming, they want to know what change is coming. Communication is key. Tell someone how it benefits them. And if it doesn't, be honest. I think people want to participate in events that know what's in it for them. Do they have a part in the play? Depending on the way it's worded, sure. Look at the business world to see that often times changes to mergers or layoffs appear quick in the public eye, often also to employees; but I highly doubt that to be true. Take for instance, our entire department with several hundred people all went through a change seminar hosted by a human resource consultant. Funny though, the consultant had no information about changes coming. And no information about changes forthcoming actually disseminated from management. Of course changes still happened, it was just not clear what was happening. Either that was intentional to keep staff on longer, the ones that felt threatened by changes or by poor communication. So again, I think communication is key. People won't expect split second changes and they may even appreciate the change if communication is forthright.