Who Wants Change?

When you need to institute changes in the company, prepare to become unpopular.

As they say time and again, only change is constant. It's true. But sometimes, people don't like change especially if they've become comfortable with the status quo. Now, what do you do when faced with this dilemma? Management wants you to reposition your team and you know for a fact that this group of people have gone through a lot of changes in the past to the point of being called guinea pigs of the company.

Rumor has it that people were demoralized as a result of the frequent restructuring of the organization. The fact of the matter is, the company is trying to find the right formula to make things more efficient. Apparently, despite the changes, it seems that it is not working. Was the team to blame? Or perhaps, the company was too ambitious with their goals given their current resources?

I discovered that people, not all of them though, do not want changes at this point in time. In fact, when I offered a supposed "potential" a new assignment to lead a project, he showed disinterest. He even cried because he didn't want to leave the team. And after a heated debate the following day with his team leader, they (as a unit) did not like the idea citing camaraderie, low morale, etc.

The bottom line is, these people have reached complacency and any move to rock the status quo will only result to resistance from those who were involved in the changes in the past.

So what do I do?

I will continue to be open to suggestions and if they have a good case, I'll support them. However, this is a business and the owners decide on what's best for the company as a whole.

Maybe it was a futile exercise talking to them in the first place. But had I not opened the floor for discussion, I wouldn't have known. So I guess, it was a good exchange of thoughts after all.