Change Agility for Resiliency, Reset & Refocus

Meeting Johnny C Taylor, CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) at the SHRM Montana Conference 2025 annual conference was such a thrill.  In addition, I was honored to be asked to lead the two-hour discussion on change agility, focusing on resiliency, reset and refocus.  I delivered the presession for an energetic and bright group of 140 human resource (HR) professionals of all levels and experiences.  We tackled a lot in this timeframe including change dynamics, natural responses to change, change adaptation, championing change, and PEKs.  Here is a summary.

Change agility requires resilience, which has many different word associations including strength, perseverance, persistence, flexibility, adaptability, agility, toughness, durability, tenacity, fortitude, resolution, longevity, confidence, hardy, stamina, conquering, survivor, endure, and faith, to name a few.

Avoiding necessary change can eliminate creativity, stunt growth, and lead us into ruts.  Like it or not, change is inevitable, affects everyone, and is really a process and not an event.  It can be perceived as good or bad, causes stress, and doesn’t always go the way we planned it, but regardless, it will happen one way or another.   As Army’s 34th Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance a lot less”.

Change happens in our personal lives, communities, globally, and in our workplaces, from birth to death, marriage to divorce, hire to fire, typewriters to computers, dirt roads to roundabouts, buggies to airplanes, peace to war, and in-person to remote work.  Think about all the changes that you have experienced or witnessed in each of these categories and identify what it was, who all was involved and affected, when, where, and why it occurred, and how you handled it.

In the workplace, some of the key changes have revolved around technology, policies and processes, finances, locations, people, and positions.  Most are in response to or in anticipation of internal or external events due to factors around laws and regulations, corporate policies, mergers and acquisitions, staffing needs, employee demands, customer demands, stretched resources, competition, the economy, and more.

Some of these changes are under our control and driven by our decisions while others are out of our control and rely on our personal responses.  To stay in charge of our responses, we need to understand human nature and individual personality styles.  The Kubler-Ross Change Curve identifies seven stages that we all go through.  They include shock, denial, frustration, depression, experiment, decision, and then integration.  Although we all go through these phases of emotions in this order, we can get caught up longer in one step or bounce backwards to prior stages.  It is equally important to better understand our personality styles along with our motivators and stressors.  Understanding this of ourselves and of others is helpful to be able to move forward.  This knowledge will help us to assist ourselves and others along the path to change agility.  For example, as a CS DiSC® style, one of my priorities is stability.  As you can imagine, change would be categorized as a stressor for me, not a motivator.  If you are an “i” personality type with the priority of enthusiasm, I suspect that delivering the message about a change with excitement and positivity might make the transition more appealing.

Becoming adaptable to change requires having the right mindset, knowledge, and regularly practicing subtle changes.  Perfectionism and procrastination are barriers for change agility.  Having a mindset of confidence, flexibility, optimism, and critical thinking will smooth the way.  Being aware of the specific reasons of the change along with clear instructions and expectations is required for successful buy-in of the change.  And as Susan M. Heathfield, HR Trainer, reminds us, “If you can’t buy into the [change itself], you can, at least, buy into the fact that it is critical that you support it.”  As for purposefully practicing minor changes, I encourage you to try only one at a time, like using your ‘wrong’ hand to brush your teeth, and have awareness of your feelings, reaction, and mindset.  You can then determine if you will keep that change, modify it, or reject it.

There are occasions to identify and drive change as well, however, championing change can be completely challenging.  (Say that three times fast!)  Assistance can come in the form of including others that share in the understanding and sense of purpose of the mission, and tapping into your leadership skills.  Leading change by flexing your skills in decision-making to be a visionary and selling the idea, building a plan to manage the mission, communicating the information to be an influential motivator, and leading by example to begin the plan execution.  As I soon will complete my training in becoming a Maxwell Leadership speaker, trainer, and coach and read the Laws of Leadership, law # 14 came to mind that it requires buy-in of the leader before someone can buy-in on the change.  As Kurt Lewin’s change management model demonstrates, reinforcing the desired change so that actions don’t revert back to the prior methods takes “refreezing” the change through persistent observation and action.  Once the change has been made, it should be evaluated for effectiveness of meeting the objective in order to make a “KARV” decision, that is to Keep, Adjust, Reject, or Vacate the change itself.

And finally, understanding that all people, including ourselves, respond to change in different ways with their pace going through the change curve as influenced by their unique personality styles, offering patience, empathy, and kindness (PEKs) goes a long way to secure the long-term success of change agility for individuals and organizations.

I hope that you can curiously examine change as it knocks at your door and courageously take action.  If you'd like your team to benefit from this discussion, please contact me.

Have a blessed day,

Deborah 

Picture of Johnny C Taylor and I below. See the photo gallery for more pictures.