The Library system I work for stands at the open door of a new era. New changes are going to be implemented to insure that we maintain our present patron base and hopefully attract a new younger patron base so the Library will maintain its place as an important community resource. Naturally, long term employees are suffering a little "CHANGE" shock.
To help us deal with the changes, the training department put together a class that I attended today. Actually, Dan (the trainer) called it the "Coping with Change" show. Dan had done extensive research to prepare for this inaugural class. He covered why people hate change. Some of the reasons are:
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Sleepwalking- most of us are creatures of habit. When our routines are broken, we have to reinvent ourselves. It's work. We have to think about what we're doing instead of performing duties by rote.
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Don't rock the boat. To put it another way, if it's not broke, why fix it.
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Criticism. When we're asked to change, we become defensive and fearful.
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Short Term Vs. Long Term Benefits. Most times the short term term discomfort we feel will be offset by the long term benefits that comes from changes.
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It's human nature. It seems like humans might be hardwired to resist change.
While most of us experience discomfort or stress over change, some people see it not as a threat but as an opportunity. We do have a the capacity to adapy. i.e. Ice Age many species became extinct, man invented fire. People don't necessarily hate change; they hate being changed. Change is inevitable. We can't stop it. The choice is how do we deal with it:
- You can Fight It
- You can try to hide from it
- You can make it work
To make it work, we need to focus on our core values. Most of us entered library work because of an idealistic nature. We need to embrace the changes that are coming and not take it personally. Focus on the positive and project that to our coworkers and customers. We need to be flexible and bend but not break.
Employees need to learn to go with the flow. We're not going to stop the change but lets stay in the boat and see where it takes us. We need to give ourselves time to see how the changes work out. Break up the problem and take one task at a time until the change is completed. We need to fight the stress we might feel.
The class ended at this point. We took a short break and discussed particular problems or concerns that we face. The one key word was communication. If staff knows why the Library needs to change...it will go much smoother.
There were some life lessons learned today or at least refreshed in our minds. Hopefully, it will help us implement the many changes that are coming. We'll just hold on to our proverbial hats; it should be quite a ride.
