Hi and welcome to MemCare by Radio. I'm Scott Hollinger and I would like to thank you for allowing us to share this time with you today. Today Colin Buckland is back with us and we're going to talk about the effect that change has on the human body. We're talking about more than just a physical location change. Colin will be discussing a broad range of issues dealing with change. Colin has served as a pastor, counselor, consultant and conference speaker for three decades. Colin and his wife Lorna are the founders of Claybury International, a ministry that provides leadership and organizational development consulting services around the world. In addition, he has authored two books on leadership. So Colin, let me start off by asking what is it about change that is so difficult?
I think I want to start from realizing that human beings largely require security, and that change is often perceived as a threat to my security. It seems like we've got a range in people, from people who thrive on change and who love to have it on the edge like that through to people who are absolutely terrified about change. What we know then is that change is a destabilizing factor. It goes through a process really. It's never going to stop, so there's always going to be change. We will be going from stability to instability and hopefully back to stability again. But then instability is waiting right around the corner. So we're going to experience a whole range of emotions. If we actually think to ourselves that human beings largely require security then we know that insecurity is going to be a common factor for people put in the midst of change. If we're right in saying that over the last 10 years the rate of change has sped up incredibly then we know also that the level of insecurity has sped up. That means that the possibility of burnout, for example among Christian workers, is likely to be higher if we don't help people to understand how they respond to change.
So, I think it's possible for us to actually take whole groups of people through training, training for change, and then help them with some inventories to look at how they're likely to respond to certain stimuli and prepare them for the kind of impact that as an individual they're going to experience. We're all different so there's going to be a range of those. I think that's what we're working on really in some of the training we're doing. We’re trying to help people understand themselves, gain a greater level of self awareness that’s absolutely key -- a greater level of self awareness, understanding what makes me tick, understanding what presses my buttons, what gets me going, what scares me, what makes me feel vulnerable, what are my reactions when I feel vulnerable, how can I actually deal with those - we can literally help one another through some training and some coaching to help the individual to cope with their own issues with change.
I know that the stress level when a change is being introduced that is so new and so different, the stress level can just go up and it manifests itself in a lot of very physical ways.
Well, it's true. I think if you haven't been part of the process of establishing the change -- that's increasingly the case -- then it comes at you and there is a great sense of loss of control. I'm out of control. I don't know what's happening to me. Stress is a natural dynamic. We need stress. We would never be able to avoid danger without stress, but stress is not meant to be a permanent state. Stress is meant to be there when we need to flee or when we need to fight (so to speak). It's there to aid us and then our whole system is supposed to return to a state of rest. In the case of change and constant change and massive change, then I can be brought to a place of stress where all the negative dynamics of stress stay with me for a long time. It's actually at that point that I'm beginning to burn, and burnout itself is actually a product of overstress. Too much stress over a long period of time. Our systems were never built, never created to engage with that level of pressure, so we cave in.
How can we, as we are going through maybe an organizational change or maybe we are being asked to move to another location to begin a new phase of Christian work, what are some tools that we can take with us that are going to help us deal with the change that will really just help us get through it.
Now I think I mentioned self awareness earlier and I think that there are a range of inventories and so on that will help us get more in touch with ourselves, but the best tool is to actually go and talk with a trusted other about your feelings. I think it's very important to speak out what I feel, rather than swallow what I feel because what we know is the more of our feelings we swallow, the more energy it requires for us to get through every day. So, we'll have less and less resources to cope with the future, the more we're swallowing these pressures. So definitely using support services, and that can be a friend. It needs to be a person that doesn't just love you to the point where they agree with everything you say, but are quite capable of helping you evaluate what's going on in your own life. But talking through what I'm feeling both before I go and then when I get there, if this is a change of location, also having it recognized by those who send me, I'm recognizing myself that I'm not going to be immediately fruitful because I've just gone through a major change. My ability to produce is reduced until I've gone through enough time to return to a state of rest. If I don't know that that's what I need to do, that may be a long time.
Our organization has gone through a number of very major changes and because we are a technology Christian organization, that's to be expected. Yet, it's still not pleasant even for those of us who enjoy new technology and love to play with the new toys and look at how we can use new toys for Christian work. What I've always appreciated and what I continue to appreciate is if those who are involved in leading the change are simply up front and let me know. I like to think of myself as a rational adult and I can handle a lot. What I can not handle is if changes are being made and I don't know why they're being made. That probably is what is most stressful to me. I may not like the changes that are being made, but if I know why they are being made then I can make some decisions. When I don't know and I'm sort of working in a fog that is very stressful to me. How would you respond to that?
Well I think that the wall of silence is very destructive. I think that if we realize that a group of people are being affected by change but they don't know what it is and they have not been told what it is or why it is, then we're holding them in a state of flux. They are out of control and they don't know why. They can't make head nor tail of it and there's a void. The human spirit being what it is tends to fill that void and we will fill that void with fantasy. Because that's an aspect of our fear we fill it. We come up with all sorts of possible scenarios most of which are far from the truth. Actually, we damage an organization. We damage people by our failing to communicate well. I would say that one of the first responsibilities of an organization going through change is to improve communication. Go out of your way to communicate well. Don't allow the thought "this is on a need to know basis and you don't need to know” because when you do that, you're abusing your power. You're abusing your authority. We have this strange belief that people can't cope with truth and actually they cope less with silence than they do with truth. They cope very well with truth. It may hurt them for a time but they can cope better with that than filling in the gaps with fantasy.
So, let's see! We've gone about 10 minutes. I'd like to leave the listener with a tool, if nothing more than just if I were to say back to you Colin, or for the organization or for the person who is in an organization going through change the key thing is that they're talking to each other. They're being up front about the change that's happening. The person going through the change with the organization can be up front with how they feel about the change and be able to go forward with questions.
Well definitely. I think that we should expect lots of questions at a time of change within an organization. We should allow that. We should value that. We should see that as a very natural process and we should give them as much information as we can. Not as little information, but as much information. In my experience, most things that seemingly need to be kept quiet don't. There's probably a tiny percentage of information that really needs to be kept and only then if it's about safety and security. For the most part, we can have an open communication organization where everything is on the table. That's much healthier dynamic. I think on an individual level what we're saying is that you need to know how you respond to change. You need to go through this process of self awareness. You may need somebody else to help you with that, just to facilitate that process so that you can know what you feel when you feel it and not be surprised by what's going on inside of you.
I've noticed that when an organization does not share or when leadership does not share with the other members of the organization about change and what their end goal is, it gives rise to rumours and you can hear some of the most outlandish things you've ever heard because there's a vacuum of information and people are going to try to fill it.
Well that's the fantasy element. You know we are quite creative even if you think we're not, so we can come up with the most incredible stories in our heads rehearsing it like rehearsing a reality. It isn't a reality, but we need a reality and we lack reality because there's a vacuum. So we're going to fill it every time. Because we're all so different, we're all going to fill it with a different version.
That's Colin Buckland helping us understand the impact of change and how it affects us.
