Laid off, but not laid out.

The call with HR was brief. After eight years of working a job that I’d loved for about six, I learned that my role had been eliminated due to a team restructure. The “update” was short and the attitude of its deliverer was cool, unceremonious, well practiced. Within minutes of receiving the news, my phone began to blow up with “OMG!” and “RU okay?” But just before the digital pings began - suspended within the brief quiet moment after I closed the Teams meeting that had facilitated the end of my longest work relationship - this realization came to me:

Life will nudge you, and if you don’t respond it will nudge again. If you continue to ignore these nudges, Life will either kick you in the booty or kick you in the teeth. Well I’ve got booty to spare, so thank God it kicked me there. Now it’s time to get my booty into gear!

Now if you’ve ever driven a car with a stick-shift, you’ve most likely noticed how difficult finding the right gear can be. Initially, you probably struggled to simply get into drive, and once you did the car lurched forward and as a result, you found yourself turned into a wide-eyed, mouth agape, white-knuckled, sweaty mess.

Maybe your inner voice yelled instructions to your brain, but the signal was hoppy and choppy making it difficult to follow the directions. It may have felt as if your mental bandwidth was overloaded causing your motor skills to stop mid-action, leaving you frozen as you tried in vain to force the car’s gear into position.

Well, you’re not alone. Change, even when welcomed or anticipated, can be disruptive and knowing which gear to get into can be consternating. Manual transmissions typically have 5 gears and they can be sticky. Likewise, when faced with workplace change people will typically get stuck in at least one of 5 forms of change resistance.

Here is how you can recognize and manage them so that you get into gear to move forward:

• Passive change resistance: Individuals remain silent about their views or appear to agree to changes, but then do not act on them. Stagnant water can breed dis-ease. Remaining silent about workplace changes may be a wise decision if the culture is not psychologically safe or if you’re not willing or in a position to offer an alternative solution. On the other hand, sometimes doing nothing is the action, but at what cost to your well-being? Be honest with yourself as to why you’re choosing to remain passive about the change you're resisting rather than actively adopting it. The answer to this question will likely reveal the source of your resistance. You can then decide how to move forward in a manner and mindset that supports your personal and professional goals.
• Active change resistance: Individuals act and speak against the change, attempting to influence others to help overturn the change. As with life, changes in the workplace are constant. But we only seem to notice when the change is not in our favor. Research experiments using board or card games to study the behaviors and thoughts of winners versus losers have consistently revealed that, “compared to losers, winners are twice as likely to perceive the outcome as fair, regardless of the level or direction of the redistribution” (1). So, before taking action against a workplace change, ask yourself if the change is bad for everyone, or is it just not ideal for you? Follow up the question by listing all of the pros and cons you can think of from both perspectives. This private exercise can help you see your motives clearly and save you from unnecessary angst, combativeness, or worse.
• Attachment change resistance: Individuals present strong arguments against the change, hoping to convince others to minimize the change. This resistance to change can sometimes signal that you have what I like to call a case of the cozies. Similar to the exercise with active change resistance, make a list of your objections with an eye on how many of them put your needs first. Chances are most of them do, which could mean that your comfort is at risk. For example, the change might require you to learn a new process or skill and while you can do it, you simply don’t want to do it. Once you’ve exhausted your list of objections, make another column of opportunities alongside it. What opportunities can you create as a counterpoint to the objection? Transform the change into an exercise for designing the work you want rather than holding on to the work you had.
• Uncertainty change resistance: Individuals worry and conjecture about the negative impacts of the change. This behavior may start rumors and affect productivity. Byron Katie’s The Work (2) is profoundly simple. Before you act on the impulse to gossip with your coworkers about the change, pause a moment to write out: “I worry that this change will (fill in the blank).” Now ask yourself, “Is this true?” Then follow up with, “How do I know it’s true?” I won’t go into Katie’s entire process, but suffice it to say that the first question - “Is this true?” - will reveal the path. You don’t know for sure that the change will have a negative impact just like you don’t know for sure that it will have a positive one. You do know that the change is there. Consider finding positive adjectives to replace the negative ones that come to mind when you think or talk about the change. Positive language primes the brain for more creative thinking and solution generation. You can’t foresee how the change will play out, but you can choose to practice a growth mindset (3).
• Overload change resistance: Individuals may “push back” and express an overall exhaustion and therefore exhibit resistance to the change simply because there’s too much of it. Even if the change is positive, too much of it can be exhausting. All things in nature have a routine. Some more rigid than others, but there are daily patterns that even the most spontaneous of us rely on - consciously and subconsciously. For many of us, going to work - be it in person or remote - provides a routine. In fact, the average American will spend approximately 90,000 hours, or one third of a lifetime, working! (4) It’s no surprise then that a workplace change can feel like a lifestyle disruption. This type of constant disruption can aggravate the most secure person, leading to a litany of physical and mental health problems if left unaddressed over time. Signs that you might be suffering from this type of change resistance may include irritability, malaise, and feelings of overwhelm or insecurity. If it’s uncharacteristic of you to doubt your job performance, quality of connection with your peers, or the value you bring to your organization, then you may be experiencing change saturation. Very often, workers in organizations that are undergoing continuous change feel uneasy speaking with their managers about it. To be fair, managers are typically in the same boat as their direct reports. This is where it is helpful to engage a professional coach or therapist for support. Unabated, low-grade stress can lead to burnout.

In reviewing this list, I feel tempted to place a value-judgment on each and write, “I’ve only ever exhibited a couple of these.” But that’s not honest. I am humbled to admit that I have participated in each of these resistance to change behaviors at different points in my career journey. I’m also encouraged to share that growth can be the result in all instances - if that’s what you set your intention on.

Once you identify which type(s) of resistance behavior you’re experiencing, you can formulate a plan to get you unstuck and into the gear you want. If the gear you want most is Growth, then you’re not alone. In fact, a 2023 MIT Sloan survey of more than 1,000 workers and interviews with leaders from 25 organizations revealed that sixty-seven percent of individual contributors most value career advancement (5). Remember that change is inevitable and that growth is impossible without it. Embrace the change, get into gear, and get rolling in a direction that inspires you!

Citations

1. Molina, Mario D et al. “It's not just how the game is played, it's whether you win or lose.” Science advances vol. 5,7 eaau1156. 17 Jul. 2019, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau1156
2. Katie, Byron, and Stephen Mitchell. Loving What Is. Harmony Books, 2002.
3. The Remarkable Reach of Growth Mind-Sets - JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24945335. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.
4. American Time Use Survey - 2022 Results - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf. Accessed 21 Nov. 2023.
5. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/to-keep-employees-focus-career-advancement#:~:text=Sixty%2Dseven%20percent%20of%20the,has%20hurt%20their%20job%20trajectory.