Note Two: Change Needs To Take Feelings Into Consideration
(You are reading this because one random day, I said I was going to share one learning note a week in 2024 and some people liked the tweet).
I struggled to write this week’s learning note because it was quite a task to pull one article out of the many things I have learnt in the last couple of days. Then, on Thursday, I watched an episode of a television show, The Bear that stuck with me. If you watch the show, almost every episode hits you but this one really brought a lot of what I have been studying together so let’s start there and talk about it.
Quick synopsis, the show is about a celebrated chef who comes home to save his late brother’s restaurant. The work is intense and there’s a long backstory that makes the pacing incredible. He is borderline crazy and so are the people he works with. Everyone is practically unhinged but really do care about their work.
Now, let’s talk about the scene that has stayed with me. Tina, one of the OG chefs, takes a really deep breath and exhales in a way that I am compelled to do it with her. All along up till moments before this, she had been resisting change and help being offered by the new sous chef, Sydney.
Tina is really good but also seasoned and has been with the restaurant for a long time. The place is like a second home to her and she had run it with the late owner and the old system through multiple seasons. She had seen the place through various hardships and then, in comes this bright-eyed, young chef talking about changing the system for efficiency. (The place was an operations nightmare, btw)
Sydney comes in asking questions, designing new systems and pointing out things that need to change. Both women have good intentions and are driven by the need to make the place work but for Tina, this clamour for a new system does not flatter the sacrifices that the old cats, like her, had made to keep the place running.
The call for efficiency causes this woman who takes her work seriously to panic so she acts out and does silly things to put her foot down against some of the changes. Then one day, Tina’s broth boils over, ruining it and she comes back from binning it in frustration to meet a fresh pot on the stove put there by Sydney. There’s a glint of gratitude in her eyes but she holds back and continues making the food.
Later on, she asks Sydney to taste the food and holds her breath again, waiting for the criticism which doesn’t come when the other woman acknowledges that it was great. We see her smile, struggle internally and later take a deep breath and exhale until her shoulders loosen. The next scene during the family meal, is where we see Tina exhale and it was the start of a camaraderie between both women.
It’s sequences like this that make shows like this appeal to me — the deep introspection into human nature, especially in high pressure situations. They help me understand myself, others and how to lead better. It is clear that Tina takes her work seriously and is naturally tense about a new person coming in to fix gaps because the mere act of trying to fix suggests that there are problems that the others couldn’t.
The act of making processes better, implementing necessary changes and creating more efficient systems is what operations is generally about. In my experience, change management is tough for multiple reasons but at the core of everything is people — how they see themselves personally and within the organisation, how they view life and their work and how they view you as a person and within the business. You can substitute business with any other aspect of life and the same things largely hold true.
People are often afraid of change and sometimes, it is because of the person suggesting/leading the changes. Other times, it’s because they worry about how it all makes them look. Or all of the above and more.
Many experts have categorised people into some groups during change management. I like to sum everything up into three types. They are:
- The antagonist.
- The ambivalent.
- The receptive.
Before I go on explaining, let me emphasize this — feelings matter. As I continue to grow as a leader, it becomes more apparent to me how much they matter, where they matter and why. The way people feel about themselves and a situation matter and it goes a long way into determining how successful processes will be.
Now, let’s get into the types of people and as you read through, I want you to calmly identify where you fall into with the changes currently happening in your life/work.
The Antagonist: Listen, there are people who are comfortable with being contrarian. It’s the one way they feel good about themselves and it gives them a strong sense of purpose. Even in friendships, they’d rather do stuff just to be different even when it defies logic. A lot of it comes from the fear of being irrelevant or being made to do stuff they doubt they’ll enjoy. It’s a feeling and it’s not often logical.
If you are trying to get them to see how things can be better, you really have to hear them out and get their angle. Except the person is being radically unreasonable, it’s key to factor their way of doing in the new process.
The Ambivalent: They don’t care which way things swing and oftentimes, they are quite unmotivated and can’t see how the change is going to fix that so they go along for the ride and are open to dropping off at some point. These people are likely to implement the new system halfway and without any additional work.
Where the antagonist feels they are key to the ways things are run and values the work they do, the ambivalent really does not feel included or motivated enough. They just go through the day like it’s a long to-do list and it’s important to figure out why they are this way, what they’d rather be doing and how you can create that space if you can.
The Receptive: They engage with the new thought process and are curious about it. They follow the process actively till it gets to the required outcomes.
It is usually advised to use this set of people as the change champions and have them critique the proposals until it is great enough for the environment. It is easier to trust them to do this because the feelings are often balanced and this set of people have a strong sense of self and clarity.
….
Everyone often thinks they are receptive. People will tell you that they don’t mind changes as long as it’s reasonable but the definition of this itself is more often than not based on feelings. We are very quick to narrate our feelings as the full picture and not simply label them what they are. We assume we are the most logical people but sometimes, you may be standing in the way. Never stop asking yourself ‘why’.
It’s a really good day to ask yourself what kind of person you are when someone suggests changes or when tasked with an opportunity to change something for the better. Do you assume good intent? Do you fight with your feelings of not being good enough? What are you afraid of? What do you think will happen if you stay receptive to that change?
And if you are the person leading the change, why are you discarding feelings as an important metric to measure and work with? Remember that feelings are data and it’s silly to dismiss them. They affect (almost) everything.
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You can read note one — Are you in the wrong playground? here