After dealing with the fear of change and understanding and acceptance among employees during periods of change in the last two posts, I would like to conduct a reflection exercise with you today. The following questions serve three purposes:
- Recapitulation and consolidation: Crystallize what is most important to you once again and consolidate it.
- Anchoring: Then write down your insights. This will anchor them more deeply in your consciousness and allow you to recall them at any time.
- Reflection and transfer: Apply your insights to your previous observations and critically re-examine them—where do you already have a clear picture of the current situation, and where is there still a thick fog? This will help you find new starting points.
The thoughts and feelings of your employees
What are your main insights from the discussions with your employees? What concerns and possibly even fears did you notice among your employees in view of the upcoming changes? What experiences have your employees had with change processes so far? What feelings do they associate with them? What is important to them?
To what extent does this correspond with their current observable behavior? And what concerns have you already been able to alleviate through your questions? What fears have you already been able to dispel thanks to your willingness to engage in personal conversations?
How do the conversations influence you?
What has changed for you personally? What deeper understanding of the concerns, reservations, and motivations behind the standstill or even active resistance were you able to develop for yourself after the enriching, albeit presumably time-consuming, exchange with your team? What came easily to you as you actively and gradually expanded your point of view, your personal island? And where are there already overlaps with your employees' islands? Which behaviors can you now understand better? What might you even agree with? And what do you consciously reject? What emotions can you identify as the drivers behind this behavior? What opportunities do you see for dealing with this constructively in the future?
What new aspects have you discovered?
Which perspectives do you find enriching because you now see further aspects of the project that you had not considered before? What new perspectives have opened up for you? What opportunities have you been able to identify? What obstacles have you recognized that were previously hidden from you? Which aspect have you been able to gain a greater understanding of through gradual, step-by-step work and intensive work on the bridge foundation? In what new light do you now see the resistance, withdrawal, or frustration of some employees?
Is there anything still unclear?
Where did you encounter difficulties? When did you find it difficult to build bridges and change perspectives? Did a bridge perhaps collapse again immediately, despite your hard work and intense willingness? What phase of change are these employees in? What drives them and what emotions lie behind their obvious (re)actions? What is your first step to rebuild the bridge and regain access to these employees?
What happens next?
What about implementing these findings? What is now at the top of your priority list? Which of these are simple to-dos that you can implement quickly and easily? When will you tackle them specifically or delegate them? And for which of your findings are you consciously setting deadlines to think them through again in depth at defined points in time and derive the next steps from them? What are you deliberately leaving out at the moment? How do you ensure that you don't lose sight of the matter?
I hope these questions encourage you to recapitulate, record, and rethink certain aspects in greater depth, and I wish you further enriching insights.
That's why you're not really happy.
Why success and fulfillment have nothing to do with each other.
