None of You Like Change!

That was the bold declaration of a speaker I saw several months ago and which has stayed with me. He was presenting to a packed room of professionals and had started his talk by making polite fun of all the trite buzz words we sometimes use to describe ourselves. He was laughing at how many of us say that “I’m a people person” or maybe “a strategic thinker” or “a change agent.” It was this last one that got the most grief because, our expert felt, few of us actually like to change.

When he made this announcement, you’d have thought he’d somehow slapped everyone at exactly the same time the way we all looked up and had a shocked expression that said “not me!” But our speaker went on to talk about how life constantly throws curveballs at us and that many of us do not exactly embrace those changes.

Taken to a silly extreme, think about the last time your local grocery store stopped carrying your favorite brand of whatever. Did you think “oh good, now I can try something else” or “great, I can search other stores to see who carries what I’m looking for”? Probably not… and that was his point. Life is full of disruptions and to say that we are people who embrace all change isn’t really true because we really don’t like to break our routines.

Holding the mirror up to myself, I started to ask the same questions. I’d never used the phrase “change agent” but certainly had described myself as someone who brought about some rather big changes in the places I’ve worked but now I was questioning whether I was being a phony. Goodness knows how I’ve perpetuated my love/hate relationship with Trader Joe’s as they constantly change their product line up introducing products I love but then find out that they’ve discontinued. So, by our speaker’s definition, I was one of the guilty parties who didn’t like change.

Still, that didn’t seem exactly right. The examples he gave all had to do with routines and disruptions that can occur. And, yes, I count on my routines so I don’t have to expend a lot of brain power on them – things like which way to drive to work or which sports team I’m going to pull for at the start of the season. But as I thought more about my career, I realized that I’ve constantly been either thrust and/or leaped into the middle of chaos and I that I rather enjoy it. True, I don’t want chaos to be my permanent state of being; still, I enjoy bringing order to that chaos, in figuring out new ways to do things. I seek a return to normalcy… perhaps a different norm than I’d known, but still something that I know I could count on going forward.

I’d heard a tale once that Albert Einstein owned seven identical suits so he didn’t waste time figuring out what to wear each day. He reserved his brain power for things he felt were far more important. Still, had Einstein’s wife bought him a nice sports coat, I suspect he would have politely left it hanging in the closet or else have agonized over how to fit it into his schedule.

Additionally, there’s an implicit bias in that “you don’t like change” statement which implies that our current state is somehow bad or lacking… that change is always the preferable choice. Don’t get me wrong – change can be a really good thing. But something isn’t automatically good just because it’s different.

So, with all this said, I must respectfully – and rather belatedly – disagree with our distinguished speaker. Change can be great or it can suck. Just be careful not to run away from – or embrace – something just because it is different. Use your head, consider the bigger picture and make the right choice for you.

Know that I’m pulling for you!