Coping with change at work

Not many years ago people learned a trade and often had a job for life. The gold watch was given by the company for 30 or 40 years of service. Those days are gone.

Now it is rare for people to stay with one employer. Redundancies occur. Sometimes career changes are required. Even within a company there are probably new initiatives, personal development schemes, new skills, updated software systems to be grappled with.

Professions like teaching or nursing have changed radically over the last 15 years with the introduction of targets to be met. Pay increases in the public sector go hand in hand with modernisation of working practices. It all means change.

What is behind all this change in the workplace? New technology has reshaped most industries and organisations. Increased competition, with the opening up of global markets, forces companies to cut costs and continually streamline wherever they can. Greater expectation on the part of customers and consumers requires constant striving for greater efficiency from the retailer or service provider.

You might be a Christian struggling with the pressures of change at work. You might well be wondering how you can cope. After all, life outside the workplace has enough ups and downs without the added stress of the boss's latest bright idea.

Ways of earning a living in Bible times - fishing, tax collecting, shepherding, etc. - tended to be fairly stable. The workplace itself was rarely a place of turmoil. So what can Scripture say to us? Well, the Bible does recount episodes of great change that affected the lives of God's people drastically. The Old Testament story of the Exodus, for example, chronicles one such major change. Israel went from slavery to freedom, from being brick-makers to nomads to self-employed farmers, from Egypt to the desert to the Promised Land. Their upheaval experience illustrates the pitfalls and potentials of coping with change.

Impact of change

How does change affect us as individuals? For most people it causes us to be anxious. We worry about change. Certainly that was Israel's reaction. In change familiar things are lost. What we used to rely on is not there any more. The skills we had in the past no longer match the demands of the present. What good are brick-making skills for tent dwellers? We feel insecure. Israel's insecurity soon turned to grumbling and complaining (Exodus 15.14; 16.2,3).

A number of factors affect the impact change makes on us.

* The desirability of the change. If we can see that the change is going to bring benefits, usually we find it easier to accept.
* Our measure of control. It is easier to come to terms with a change if we have had some input in the planning.
* The number of change events. If several changes are happening all at once they are more difficult to assimilate.
* The duration of the change period. If change is prolonged, we wonder when things will ever settle down. This makes us more anxious.
On all these counts we have to have some sympathy with the Israelites! The change was desirable, but as yet they had not seen the Promised Land. They were moving from place to place. At one level they had little say. They were in the hands of God who is not answerable to anyone but himself and his holy character.
* Our faith. The ultimate factor in determining how we react to change is the trust we have in the competence of those in charge. In a company this rests with our bosses. But for the Christian who sees that the bosses are in the hands of the Lord (Colossians 3.23) the main factor in handling change is the strength of our trust in God. Experiencing change at work is a real time to exercise faith.
So, as we face or even instigate change in the workplace, realise that it is going to heighten anxiety levels. People will need supporting. For the Christian the great answer to anxiety is prayer. 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving...' (Philippians 4.6,7).

Phases of change

Like Israel, most people's response to change is to oppose it somewhere along the line. Opposition, of course, is the right thing if change is evil or foolish. Many Old Testament prophets were speaking the word of the Lord as they condemned ungodly changes. The stick-in-the-muds are not always wrong.

How do we know when to oppose change and when to embrace it? We must take an honest, long-term view. It is easy to be like panicky, self-centred, short-sighted Israel who opposed Moses in the desert because of the initial hardships of their new situation. They wanted satisfaction immediately. They looked back at their past through rose-coloured spectacles. 'If only we had died by the LORD'S hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted' (Exodus 16.3). Suddenly, in the light of the changes and anxieties, slavery to Pharaoh looked like a great deal! They did not think of the long-term benefits of freedom and a land of their own.

No. We must look at proposed changes coolly and impartially. The Christian with faith in God ought to be in a good position to do just that. If our security is not in our employment or our salary but in Christ, we ought to be able to take an honest view of the company and its future. It may be that we need to oppose change, but, if so, let it be out of sound reasoning, not panicky selfishness.
Management experts often use a graph (like the one above) to illustrate the pattern people can go through as they face change.

The theory is that understanding the seven phases of personal change can help us speed up the transition. The graph shows not our performance but our personal well-being or the way we perceive our competence over the time of a change. To begin with, (1) we feel immobilised, that there is a mismatch between the expectations and reality. Then, (2) we go into denial and hope the change won't occur, so we work even harder at the old way of doing things. But that is followed by (3), an awareness that change is necessary and we feel frustrated and incompetent. By (4) we are beginning to accept the change and let go of past behaviours. Here we are at rock bottom. Then, (5) we begin trying and testing new approaches and new ideas. As we do this, (6) we begin to slowly accept and agree with why we are doing things in a new way, and begin to feel a bit more comfortable. Then, (7) we move forward, at home with the news ideas and the new routines.

Going through such changes can be difficult, especially at that moment where people feel frustrated and incompetent! But it is a time when a new team spirit can be built if things are handled well. Change can be a great leveller. It is new to us all. We are all learning. It is a time for Christians to show some humility. We may get our pride punctured as that old competence we used to have is gone. Things are new. There are bound to be mistakes made. We will need patience and kindness towards others and ourselves! Change therefore is a time for the fruit of the Spirit to be on display (Galatians 5.22,23).

Why we are put through it

We might well be the kind of people who wish we had lived in previous centuries when there was not so much change! 'Why O Lord, did I have to be born in the computer age?' You feel you just cannot face it all.

It is instructive to see why God put the Israelites through all the changes, along the route he did. The reason that God led them to the Promised Land, through the desert and fed them with manna along the way was not merely to provide for them. A much greater purpose was being served which Moses later explained. 'He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna ... to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD' (Deuteronomy 8.3). God's purpose was to change them. His purpose in the change was developmental. He wanted to make them less dependent on their circumstances and more dependent on himself.

And surely that gives us a useful insight into how best to view the changes and pressures we face in our daily lives too, including our work. The challenges we face are part of God's testing and trying and refining and reshaping us into men and women of faith. He wants to change us from people who rely chiefly on our working abilities, our salaries, our position in the company pecking order, to people who rely on him.

Why does God want to do that? The answer is it is for our good. He knows that we are made for him, and that nothing in this world, be it promotion, or pay, or partnership or pension scheme can ultimately satisfy us. Whatever we have in the world of work will not last. In a changing world we are being retrained to trust in the unchanging God.

JEB

For further reading:
'Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work' by Dr. Spencer Johnson, Vermilion Books, ISBN 0 0918 1697 1.
'All the Hours God Sends: Practical and Biblical Help in Meeting the Demands of Work' by Peter Curran, IVP, ISBN 0 85111 656 6.

Are the new initiatives getting to you?

Impact of change

Phases of change

Why we are put through it

JEB

John Benton

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