I was talking with a mate of mine today, we were discussing how quickly things have changed over these past few weeks and how some people are really struggling with adapting to change, especially changes in the workplace. It reminded me of a book that I read years ago written by Dr Spencer Johnson titled Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

A New York Times business bestseller upon release, Who Moved My Cheese? remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list.[1] It has sold more than 26 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books.

Below is an animated video which provides a great insight into the storyline of the book. It’s a motivational business fable about understanding how some people embrace change quickly and how others refuse to accept change or get stuck in a rut (playing the blame game change) literally paralysed by fear.

The book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ takes very little time to read, and even though it was published back in 1998 it is definitely worth reading and revisiting over these coming months to help you get through the challenges ahead.

Below is also an excerpt from an article by Nick Ray about Workplace change – the dangers of not embracing how people adapt which I also found insightful.

Changing the workplace can deliver significant benefits for an organisation and its people, but it takes awareness, conscious effort and commitment to help people work in new ways. Get it wrong and people will be unhappy and will counter the change with adaptive behaviours to gain back control.
When organisations’ change their work environments, people move from a comfortable predicable environment to one with new ‘risks’ and uncertainties. This disruption can result in lower happiness levels and research from BI Worldwide indicates that a lower level of happiness relates to a reduction in people feeling obliged to work hard – something no leader wants.
Change also means teams and individuals will evolve and adapt their behaviour. This response is partly instinctive as we seek to control the ‘risks’ we might be exposed to, but in the office environment this is also about setting ourselves up to effectively and efficiently deliver our work.
The key is making sure your implementation and change management plans identify adaptive behavior, and work with it to deliver a happy, productive team.

There are a lot of changes currently taking place within the workplace and out in the marketplace, and it’s important to adapt quickly and become service focussed as well as solution focus.

Adopting a role model mindset, facing your fears and seeing the Chance within Change is an important

I hope you find this information helpful

Regards

Greg Vincent