Managing change: Losing an existing condition or trying a new idea. The challenges ahead

By Chaouki Eid; Deputy Managing Director - Al Mawred Training & Consulting

I recently enjoyed reading an article titled “When's the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time?” by William C. Taylor. My thinking then took me in another direction and I started thinking “When was the last time I lost something that meant something to me”, and which would be more challenging: Doing something for the first time or losing something that we had taken for granted?

Examples regarding something we lost are many, and include:

• Downgrading travel class. Many companies amend their travel policies due to economic or geopolitical volatility. Unfortunately, some employees look at this as a negative decision made by senior management and start blaming them for not having done enough earlier to avoid such a decision. But in reality, all what the disgruntled employees are doing is voicing their discomfort about the new downgraded status.
• Ceasing to have a valuable perk. Don’t we all enjoy additional perks? The questions are: have we calculated their net worth? And, is it worth worrying about those perks when we lose them?
• Losing an excellent subordinate. We like to be surrounded by highly effective subordinates; but do we really take excellent care of them while they are around or do we take them for granted? What we are really worried about is the loss of productivity under our accountability umbrella. Shouldn’t we all accept that our subordinates may be just transiting, and that our job is to develop their skills so they can fly somewhere else when the right opportunity presents itself to them
• Relocating to another location. While change is tough, desperately holding on to something can be damaging. Never try, never know. Yes we get used to our surroundings, yet accepting that the best is yet to come is imperative.

It is unfortunate that we take many things in life for granted and it is not till we lose them that we start appreciating them. Let’s of course keep in mind that the scope of this discussion does not include losing loved ones, which would be completely different and could be discussed separately.

Going back to my earlier question about which is more challenging: Doing something for the first time or losing something that we had taken for granted? I believe both are challenging, however the loss is usually more difficult to deal with than going towards the unknown.

Counting our blessings, reminding ourselves of how good we have it and appreciating what we still have is a must. Accepting the loss without the nagging part will help us cope better and will allow us to stay focused on the future.