Picture yourself standing on the bank of a river you must cross and have never crossed before. What are you feeling? Maybe anxiety because you don’t know how deep the river is, the strength of the current, or if there are snakes or other unknown challenges awaiting you. Most likely, you’ll wonder what it will be like on the other side—will it be worth it? The journey is full of unknowns and for most people, that’s uncomfortable.
I’ve just described a transition for you. Transitions are more than changes; they are changes that affect people emotionally and psychologically. Every transition has three stages. They begin with an ending, a loss of what was known, followed by a journey through the unknown until finally arriving at something new, which may not be what you pictured in your mind. Transitions happen all the time in clubs just like yours across the country, impacting everyone. Leadership transitions are the most common, e.g., the hiring of a new club general manager begins a transition for that person and the club, a new board president, etc. Your club might be in transition because of a major remodeling, an expansion program or a course re-design. A membership drive that significantly changes the makeup of club membership might also be a transition. Don’t forget about the effect of the personal transitions going on in the lives of staff and members.
The good news about transitions is while they are often uncomfortable and stressful, they are also rewarding because they provide a tremendous growth opportunity. When a transition has been successfully navigated, those affected will have learned more about themselves and developed new skills and resiliency for the future.
The most common mistake I’ve witnessed in my career navigating and leading countless transitions is not recognizing their significance and taking steps to address the challenges and concerns of the people involved. Too often people are forgotten or an afterthought, yet they are the ones who will make a transition successful or cause it to fail. I believe it’s one of the reasons why there is a 30 to 40% failure rate of new leaders within 18 months of their hire1 and why 83% of all mergers and acquisitions fail2 or fail to live up to expectations. It’s all about people. Whatever you face in the future you need to be prepared to lead and navigate through transitions.
Emotions
Since transitions impact us emotionally, you will be more successful when you recognize and accept them on the journey. Denying or ignoring emotions will only cause an iceberg-like effect, pushing them below the surface and causing damage later when least expected. Many people are uncomfortable talking about emotions, and people may have concerns about being considered emotional. While this negative attitude toward emotions is beginning to change, emotions are sometimes seen as a sign of weakness or being out of control.
There is a preference for being considered thoughtful, rational or logical. Yet logic doesn’t move people to action—it just makes them think. For example, people know they should stop smoking or lose weight, but having knowledge doesn’t move them to do it. What drives us to act are emotions. Research has found that almost 95% of our decisions to purchase are based on emotions.
Understanding Emotions
When facing physical danger, our brain instantly makes a threat assessment and directs us to protect ourselves, i.e., fight or flight. We’ve known this for some time, but we haven’t understood until recently that our brain has the same instantaneous assessment and reaction when we experience an emotional threat. We’ve all witnessed someone’s instant reaction to something said to them, wondering to ourselves, “What’s gotten into them?” We didn’t realize the reaction was their response to an emotional threat.
Dr. David Rock’s foundational research about emotional safety, identified five elements that trigger our emotions, using an easy to remember acronym: SCARF. When the brain senses a threat
to one or more of those elements, it instantly generates a fight or flight response. The five elements are:
STATUS. How important we feel compared to others. Things like a job title, skills and identity play major roles in how we see our status.
CERTAINTY. We love predictability, a sense of knowing what is coming next. For some, an uncertain future is exciting, but for most it brings on anxiety, fear and worry.
AUTONOMY. Having control over the decisions that impact our work and life.
RELATEDNESS. Connectedness with others, relationships, our community where we feel safe and understood.
FAIRNESS. A perception that transactions are impartial, fair and just.
Remember we are all created uniquely. While we each have those five elements, what generates a strong reaction in you may have little effect on another person.
A Tool for Recognition
You can use SCARF as a tool to recognize emotional responses in yourself and others. When you recognize them, you are better equipped to hold back responding and instead, take a deep breath and determine what to do next.
Imagine Dennis is an experienced general manager, dealing with Jim, the new board president. Jim is enthusiastic and wants to do everything he can in his year to help the club. In his zeal, he constantly makes suggestions for improvements or offers new ideas to Dennis. How does Dennis view them? He might view them as criticism of himself and his team, which his brain might perceive as a threat to his status (an experienced and competent GM), or if he believes Jim wants to be the decision maker, a threat to his autonomy (those are his decisions to make). Recognizing these emotions may help him hold back from reacting, which could damage his relationship with Jim, and instead seek a conversation to better understand Jim’s intent.
A Tool for Communication
You can use SCARF to tailor your communication with others. Great communication answers questions on the minds of those you are communicating with. If you can anticipate responses to changes that will affect staff and/or members, you can craft a more targeted message. As an example, if a major renovation will be coupled with procedural changes, you might anticipate it will trigger threats to certainty and fairness. To address those, in your communication you should provide more details on how things will work and what will change to reduce the uncertainty, and information on why the changes are being made to reduce concerns about fairness.
Tips to Help Navigate Transitions
Following are four tips to help you in navigating transitions:
- RECOGNIZE EMOTIONS. The better you get at recognition, the less surprised you will be. Still, at times you will be surprised
or confronted by someone. Use these questions to gain insight and determine your next step:
What did you mean by that?
Don’t assume intent. Seek more information and gain a better understanding.
Can you give me an example?
An example will provide more clarity.
Why do you think I did that?
If you may have been misunderstood, this question can provide insight to their perception and provide you a chance to explain yourself.
2. ASK OPEN QUESTIONS. How you ask questions determines the response. Most use direct questions, causing the other person to defend themselves. This rarely gets the true answer and doesn’t help your relationship with them. Using an open approach asks the same thing, differently and more effectively. Notice the difference in approaches. Which would you prefer to answer?
Direct approach
“Why did you do it that way?”
“Tell me why you didn’t you do it …”
Open approach
3. SHARE OBSERVATIONS, NOT OPINIONS. A good friend taught me the value of sharing observations instead of opinions. When someone shares an opinion, it is often more about letting others know how smart, educated or experienced they are. And once an opinion is shared, it’s hard to take it back or change it.
Sharing your observations is less threatening and accepted better by others. Imagine you are new to a club and eight months into your tenure, a past board president asks your opinion about how the membership is reacting to changes being implemented.
You could share your opinion, “I think they are resisting change, more than I’ve seen in other clubs. They like what they have had for years and don’t want to see anything different.” If the past board president believes the membership is open to change, your opinion may not be received well, and the conversation will end quickly. If you chose to share your observations, you might say, “I’ve observed in my short time here that there is a level of comfort with
4. INCLUDE THE WORD “EVEN” IN YOUR VOCABULARY. In building relationships, it’s natural to want to impress others. The downside of pumping ourselves up is we may use words and tell stories that unintentionally make others feel less valuable or threatened. By inserting the word “even” into your vocabulary, you’ll affirm others and be less threatening.
If someone asks why a change was made, a response could be, “we had to change things to fix what wasn’t working for our members.”
If the person asking the question had been a member who helped create the process being changed, how might they feel? Now add the word “even” into the response and notice the difference.
“We made the change to make it even better for our members.” Notice the member’s past work has been affirmed, not criticized.
Emotions can’t easily be controlled or directed. In his book “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt describes the emotional side of the brain as an elephant. Consider my nephew Steve, a zookeeper who works with elephants, as the logical side of the brain. I’ve watched Steve be successful getting the elephants to do tricks for visitors, using logical directions and targeted incentives. On other days, and sometimes even the same day, the elephants ignore him and refuse to do what he wants. As good as Steve is, when they don’t want to do something, he can’t command or make them. You don’t control your emotions or others’ either. His best chance for success is persuading them, not commanding them, using the relationship he has with them. It’s the same for you. Your ability to build and maintain relationships will be helpful in navigating transitions.
Dale Kreienkamp is a speaker and President of Thriving Through Transitions, a consultancy focused on helping organizations and individuals successfully navigate difficult transitions. Dale can be reached at [email protected] or at dalekreienkamp.com.