Managing Changes

After ConGen, which ended on a Tuesday, I had three more "gap days" to close out the week. On the Wednesday, I was proactive and found a one-day course called "Managing Change" up for which I was able to sign. We all received a copy of the book "Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change" by William Bridges, which is all about dealing with major changes that happen on the personal, team or organizational level. A lot of the course dealt with leadership strategies; how to help your subordinates or your team get through a difficult change, how to communicate upcoming changes to them, etc. Communication seemed to be the main message of the entire day - change is inevitable, but in order to maintain your credibility as a leader, it is key to keep people informed and to be honest about what you know, what you don't know, and what they can expect.

By the way, a lot of the course reinforced what I've learned from the book my Uncle Joe is writing about resilience. His start-up company, Arctos Associates (http://www.get-resilient.com/), identifies seven traits that lead to resilience: Perseverence, Compassion, Humor, Confidence and Flexibility, all supported by a foundation of Honesty, and giving rise to a sense of Balance or perspective. Humor was one trait that several people brought up in my "Change" course as being important to help them adapt to change, as well as Honesty.

In addition to learning about how humans physically deal with change and stress, we also talked a bit about positive changes. The main focus of the course obviously was on how to overcome difficult changes, but in my case, for example, when we did exercises about a change we are dealing with now I could only think of a very positive one (getting a wonderful new job and moving to Denmark). But one point that the instructor made repeatedly was that "all change involves loss", and as I looked more deeply into my analysis I could find some elements of joining the Foreign Service that I might find difficult (mostly, having significantly less control over my own life: I'll be living in assigned housing, for example, and not engaging in political activities). Obviously, these drawbacks are minor compared to the huge advantages, but it does make sense, I think, to look at them directly and think about how to make them even less of an issue. It probably wouldn't be particularly damaging to say "yeah, that part's annoying, but overall it's great" - I could definitely get by on that attitude. But it would be even better if I am able to address the annoying parts right away, move through the stages of grief, and instead of being, say, up seventy percent and down five, something like up seventy and down one. Does that make sense?

Anyway, it makes enough sense to me that I'm glad I spent a day in the course. If I ever have a chance I will definitely sign up for an Arctos course as well, and not just because of the family connection! ^^