Think of the last time someone at work—maybe your boss, your boss’s boss, or an HR person—told you a change was coming. Some new way to do something, or a restructuring, or a new system to learn. What was your immediate response? If you’re like most people, your first reaction was probably more negative than positive. Perhaps something like: “Aargh, as if the past 18 months haven’t been stressful enough.” Or maybe you thought, “This is going to be awful,” followed by a sinking feeling and a sense of being newly overwhelmed. Why is the idea of change—especially change imposed upon us by others—so unwelcome? Given the past few years of massive change and disruption on so many levels, you’d think we would have gotten used to nonstop personal and professional change by now. Our Anti-Change Wiring Blame our experience as a species. Change has been dangerous for most of human history; the safest course of action has generally been to return to the known. If there was a famine, you wanted to get back to eating regularly. If there was an invading army, you wanted to get back to peace and prosperity. If there was a plague, you wanted to get back to (relative) health. You get the idea. Most of the time, homeostasis—returning to a previous set of stable conditions most supportive of survival—was the way to go. READ FULL ARTICLE>>
