Business Link

by Dr Janin Vansteenkiste

It starts one morning, with a bang. You work on your PC when a mighty thud rocks your house. More thuds, followed by crashing sounds… You see a crew of demolishers bringing down the roof on your neighbour’s house. The neighbour is nowhere to be seen.

Now, communication between you and your neighbour has been sparse. It is not as if you’ve been ‘close’.

This morning you are rattled but unsure about what to do. You want to know what his plans are. You decide to wait until he tells you more. You wait in vain… A new structure with different proportions emerges… You live by assumptions: ‘If his garage next to my bedroom turns into a two story shape, with a balcony looking strait onto my dining table… What else is coming???’

Months go by without significant communication. Because you have no information, you interpret the scene, based on your own emotions and apprehensions. Needless to say none of this improves your neighbourly relationship.

Translate this sequence of events into your work environment:

The new IT system suddenly is installed on Monday.
Your team is restructured without warning.
Your stock must shift to another depot without explanation.
HR used a different performance appraisal which brings your salary down a notch.

Imagine the worst:
• Here comes a merger.
• With retrenchments.

But you are not informed.

You cannot possibly be prepared.
You are not ‘with it’, you rather feel totally against it.

What could have been a constructive adaptation to change, becomes a build up of assumptions, apprehensions and antagonism. You are swept into a change that fills you with dread and you have no clue where management is taking you. Performance motivation drops to rock-bottom…

WHEN IT COMES TO INITIATING CHANGE, THE FIRST THING WHICH NEEDS TO BE PUT INTO PLAY IS OPEN COMMUNICATION.