All change means loss. We lose something in every change.
It’s not change that we resist – it’s the losses. So what are you afraid of losing?
What are your people afraid of losing?
People are wired to be more sensitive to possible loss than to possible gain. There’s a large body of research here – much of it on stock market behavior.
As we approach changes, we are more sensitive to what we might lose than what we might gain. We might lose a sense of security, we might lose colleagues we value, we might lose our sense of competency – knowing what we’re doing .
For yourself and for your people, you need to sort through these fears, separating what is real and what is not. Many of our fears are not real, and we need to free ourselves from them. But some of them are real, and we need to accept that and prepare.
In both cases, we need a dose of reality. The point is to move toward hope, toward possible gains, but first we have to be honest about our fears. In the end, hope is the answer to fear, but only if it accepts the reality of the fear.
So again, what are you afraid of losing? What are your people afraid of losing?
