“Since management changed, the things that are special about working here are getting squashed and lost. It’s a completely different workplace now, and I’m not sure if I fit here any more. It feels so sad.”
Rob* was working hard to maintain his composure as he described the changes he was experiencing a few weeks into an out-of-the-blue organisational change. The IT company he joined over a decade ago had been merged into a much larger global business and it felt to Rob that everything he held dear at work was disappearing.
In the original company Rob thrived with a small team that relished their fast, agile processes for getting things done. It had very little hierarchy and trusting working relationships.
Now he was grappling with a corporate, top-down management system. The processes to get decisions approved, or even considered, were slower and cumbersome. It felt like the real work was navigating the hierarchy rather than building products and dealing with customers.
Rob was struggling to maintain a calm and professional demeanour with new managers. He felt bewildered as new IT systems, payroll, performance management, leave and business approval processes were switched over.
“Everything is so complicated. I’m sitting in meetings wanting to shout out, ‘this is nonsense’, boiling angry and upset but trying not to show how I’m feeling. It’s really hard to stay positive and work collaboratively feeling this way.”
Understandably Rob noticed his motivation and engagement dropping and was finding it more difficult to stay focused and productive. His distress is likely familiar to many of us given the rapid rate of change occurring in so many organisations and across all industry sectors.
The downsides of organisational change are well documented and apart from the obvious job insecurity fears, broader effects like family and work conflicts, threats to psychological wellbeing and loss of sleep and illness are commonly reported. Some expert commentators have characterised restructure effects as psychological shockwaves and this was certainly Rob’s experience.
It wasn’t hard to validate and normalise Rob’s negative experience and distress over the transition so far. It was tougher, but vital, to help him hold hope and optimism for his future career.
There were two evidence-based reasons for creating hope. First, research overwhelmingly shows us that optimism is a protective factor whenever we experience hard times. It helps us to respond with greater flexibility and orients us towards problem solving, which helps us stay in better emotional shape.
Second, there is evidence that while organisational change is threatening, it can also provide the possibility for better future outcomes. These might be chances to improve work conditions, learn and master new competencies, train and develop skills or find more supportive colleagues and leaders.
Reaching out to become more connected to other people
A recent study has shown that coaching can help people maintain perspective, problem solve and be more active in transitions. With coaching support, Rob sought connections with people inside and outside his organisation, and he instituted conversations with a broad range of colleagues, managers and friends. The most helpful support was emotional and tangible – introductions to firms looking to hire, professional networking forums and online communities of support for employees experiencing significant change. These connections have helped him feel less alone. They helped him believe he had options, which increased his sense of personal power and control.
Connecting with people in similar circumstances has helped Rob give himself permission to acknowledge, name and express the rollercoaster of emotions he has been experiencing – fear for his future, rage at the unfairness of it all, frustration about the new leadership, sadness with the loss of the some of the original company culture, irritability with all the new systems and processes, and gratitude for his old colleagues and his family, who are steadfast in their care for him. Naming emotions is a powerful coping strategy and Rob has been surprised to notice positive emotions (gratitude and love among others) coexisting with the darker ones.
Learning about and better understanding some of his psychological experiences during the transition has also been useful. In particular, Rob experienced immediate resonance with the phenomenon “emotional labour”. Psychologist Susan David describes emotional labour as the “effort it takes to keep your professional game face on when what you’re doing is not concordant with how you feel”.
For Rob, working hard to look and act calmly when he feels like shouting “this is nonsense” in a meeting is significant emotional labour. Knowing that “game face” is an energy suck has helped Rob be more intentional about planning emotional recovery time from work. This has been as simple as taking proper lunch breaks so he doesn’t run out of emotional steam before the end of the day.
Another key component of the emotional recovery time for Rob has been shifting his focus to prioritise his life over his work. This shift in focus fits with the accepted wisdom in psychology that for our wellbeing we are best to pay the most attention to what we can control and practising acceptance towards events that we can’t.
It has led Rob to question his assumptions about how his career would turn out and rethink his hopes and goals for his future. That’s brought alternative careers and workplaces into play, which he has found liberating.
Again, hope and control protect emotional energy and help him to look towards the future. Asking, “what is most important to me in the next two to five years, or the next 10?” tags in the resilience skill of perspective taking.
For now, Rob remains with the company. I don’t yet know if he’ll stay longer or move elsewhere. In the meantime he is navigating the transitions better and feeling less like a boat lost on a stormy sea. He might even agree with this quote from management theorists James Belasco and Ralph Stayer: “Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.”
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
• Gaynor Parkin is a clinical psychologist and founder of Umbrella Wellbeing
