David Sudjiman

Everybody doesn’t like changes without knowing what’s right for them. The first question asked is always, “What is it good for me?” or “Will I still been able to work for the next 6 months?~T These changes often require our personal life and value to change to do another different method of work. Naturally, each person will push back when somebody pushes in. Action versus reaction. Changes versus resistance.

But what exactly we resist? Do we resist if we know that those changes will end up well and brings more value to us? Look at Marriage versus company system change. Which one is the more complicated change? Obviously we will say Marriage is the more complicated than company system change. But why we resist more on smaller change?

Based on Kubler-Ross book, “On Death and Dying”. There are steps involved for someone before having any acceptances for changes. There are, in particular order, Denial, Angry, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. The point is that if we know that we going to go through those steps, we will understand more what we are facing, and better, we know what people doing to resist, until come to an acceptance.

I like when Peter challenged the audience to differ between Change and Creativity. Well, Change is ’something different’ and Creativity is ’something different’ too. So, what’s the different? Changes usually comes from outside and it’s more like ‘You decide’ and Creativity comes from inside and it is like ‘I decide’.

So why would we changes then? It is because that we understand the situation. What’s good for us then we buy-in. But what if not?

Based on the book by Virginia Satir - Change Process Model, Peter de Jager explained that we are trying to keep our Status Quo. Status Quo can mean our Job Security (is there any?), Personal Life, Personal Achievement, or anything that we feel comfortable of doing it. And the Changes come; it disrupts the Status Quo level until we somehow manage to achieve another level of comfortability. Can be higher or lower from our previous Status Quo level. Higher means we get more achievements than before, lower means less productive.

To add the value of this seminar, Peter brought up many of practical cases and sometimes true experience and picture it based on the Kubler-Ross‘ book or Virginia Satir - Change Process Model.

To sum up, all I can remember is that resistance to change is acceptable. How to take people to accept are the art ways of leadership and creativity.

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Peter de Jager is a speaker/writer/consultant on the issues relating to the Rational Assimilation of the Future. He has published hundreds of articles on topics ranging from Problem Solving, Creativity and Change to the impact of technology on areas such as privacy, security and business. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Futurist and Scientific American. His Website can be reached at http://www.technobility.com/