How to Make Stressful Change Sticky: Focus & Reflection

You’re leading your team through an important, complex, stressful change. You’ve done the work to prepare and brought them into the process. You earned their buy-in, and you’re off to a great start. In the first week you make progress. In the second a little less. A month later, well… not enough.

Stressful Change Demands Focus

成功压力变化的最大障碍之一：失去专注力。穿上旧方式，穿上旧舒适的鞋子更容易。

The problem is magnified because we’re not just dealing with one change. We’re implementing a new strategy… IT introduces a new email tool… a client changes the specifications on a big project… and meanwhile, a key team member is thinking about leaving. And at the same time: We have all the normal work that must be done every quarter, every day. It’s not just change – it’s stressful change!

In the chaos, it’s all too easy to let the strategic priority slip into the background.The way our brains respond to stressis part of the problem. When we’re stressed, our brains seek out opportunities for comfort – and resist what’s unknown. It makes sense: As chaos increases, our brains are seeking ways to make life easier.

压力大脑块变化

Stress is a signal of rising complexity and risk. As you can see in this video, the neurological response to stress is easy to understand: Protect.

对于我们的大脑来说，一种保护的一种形式正在逐回熟悉的行动和反应方式。当压力低，好奇心很高时，我们的情绪标志着我们的大脑：“这是尝试新事物的好时机！”随着压力的增加，我们寻求熟悉和短期，自私自利的保护的舒适感。

This “normal” reaction causes destructive behavior like undermining authority, building cliques of personal power, or even unethical actions like lying and stealing. So does it mean stress is evil and we’re stuck? Maybe not.

使用压力来助长复杂的变化

At the same time stress blocks change, we’ve all experienced that it can also be a motivation. When I tore my quadriceps tendon and was laying on the ground in agony (for the second time, by the way), I became quite convinced: It’s time to change. Stressful change can be the key to successful change!

When we are suffering, we may be open to try something – anything – to make life better. This presents an opportunity for an emotionally intelligent change leader.

领导压力变化的三个技巧

Buildtrust: Don’t try to soften or hide or diminish the pain. When you and your team are at a point of struggle, denying it makes it worse. Acknowledge reality. No over-dramatization, and no empty words.

Buildbelonging: Make sure that you and the team are allies against the challenges. Your job is to support the team to beat back the besieging army, and you team needs to FEEL you as standing shoulder to shoulder.

Buildmotivation：确保对未来的愿景对所有团队来说都是有意义的和真实的。找到对每个人有意义的语言（隐喻，符号）（一个“咒语”可能没有效，而是认识到您需要以与每个人相匹配的方式进行1-1传达）。您和他们需要看到并感受到机会。制定明智的计划以及情绪智力需要认知智能才能使其感受到。

变革的成功需要短期和长期关注

In most organizations, high performers are rewarded for getting stuff done. We know from the2016 State of the Heart global EQ analysisthat the majority of managers and senior managers have a “Deliverer” brain style. This is a style that prefers logic, experimentation, and concrete action. It’s essential for getting work done and achieving results. And it has a downside, the trap of becoming a “Human Doing.”

I can relate – usually when I take theBrain Brief Profile，我得分为送货员。我将手放在一个项目中并将其推动成果而感到成就和效力，我擅长于此，我为此而晋升。短期重点是我立即使用权力的一种方式。

The risk for me, and maybe for you, is that I get so caught in the operative priorities of this week and this quarter… that I lose track of the big goal, and I find myself on the treadmill: Doing good work that doesn’t create change.

一种解决方案是日历。安排时间重新关注大局，重新与此更改过程中的成功图片重新连接。对我来说，这是董事会会议，因为在六秒钟内，我们有一个远见卓识的董事会。现金网赌钱网站如果您没有这样的联盟，那么是时候创建一个联盟了。邀请您团队中有远见的人参加会议。或从您的组织中引入另一个可以帮助您和您的团队停下来的领导者，并记住您的变化的发展方向。

如果您没有花时间长期谈论，请不要再花一个月的时间了。如果您是一个顽固的交付者，您可能会发现这样做不舒服，但是对于长期，压力大的变化来说，这是至关重要的。