Just how open are you? Open to new ideas, to different ways of thinking? To allowing that someone other than you can have a plan that works as well as yours and how you’ve always done it?
If it’s a struggle for you then you’ve found a place you need to dig in and do some work. Now more than ever before, things are changing; processes are changing, structures, strategies and tactics are changing and that means people are changing to meet these needs.
You need to be one of them.
And you might not know how, or realize that you must, to continue to be seen as making a difference for your company.
That’s my situation. Everything at my company is changing, from top leadership to technology. It’s enough to make your head spin when you’re trying to do your job and you can’t get anything done because everything in this new world is changing so fast it’s taking forever to figure out how to do it. Can you blame me that I want to do it the old way, the tried and true way, which for some of us “experienced” employees is the faster way? Who wants these changes? Kids, that’s who. These geniuses have convinced the new boys at the top that if it’s new and shiny we need it. Don’t get me wrong. There was a time that I was the one fighting for upgrades and investing in new technology. That was back when it made sense, when we took the time to train people to get them up to speed. Now, we aren’t taking the time to train folks, and if they can’t figure it out we leave them in the dust. I hate to say it: I’m getting dusty.
Being open is as much a state of mind as it is a practiced behavior. And saying, “No”, “Can’t”, “Won’t”, “Shouldn’t” is a dead giveaway that you’re stuck in a musty box of stale thinking. So is talking badly about otherwise sensible people whose only (or most pronounced) vice is wanting to stay competitive in markets that change while you’re looking at them.
My hunch is that you’re not aware of how you are coming across to others and if you were, you’d re-think your responses. Further, I bet you were the one who had been in the know, the person others looked to for direction, and now that’s not happening. In the gap between what you knew and what you know now may be more cynicism than you realize. And instead of behaving like the positive person you were, a more negative version of you is walking around in your shoes, and stepping in stuff that is getting in the way of your success.
Take back your power (and clean off your shoes) by reinstating your confidence. The best way to do that is to get on board, learn what you need, and teach others who, like your former reluctant self, can benefit from an attitude adjustment. You’ll be surprised what a difference it makes.
