Adjusting to unfamiliar situations, demands and changing roles. Seeing change as an opportunity and being receptive to new ideas. Adapting to new demands is essential for both personal and organisational survival, especially in the current HE environment. As Charles Darwin observed: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. The key to embracing change is building resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt successfully to unexpected changes and events and involves our behaviours, thoughts and actions. The starting point is accepting that change is an integral part of life and a constant in our professional lives. Being ‘change ready’ means more than just being on board with change. Change readiness is a combination of continuous learning, managing our thoughts and feelings, collaboration and risk-taking and having a ‘change before you have to’ continuous improvement philosophy. Often we deal with change from a place of survival, reaction or necessity because we are unprepared. But if you assume and accept that change is going to happen you will be better prepared for it, you will look for signs that it is about to happen and most importantly you won’t be derailed or overwhelmed when it does happen. Being prepared for change will help you to remain positive about moving forward despite being realistic about the difficulty of change. There is no doubt that experiencing change can be challenging, so how does one learn to embrace change? The key is in changing your thinking. Change can be exciting as well as challenging. Each event that happens to you has the potential to either move you forward or backward. You may not be able to control or influence the changes that you are experiencing, but what you can control is how you react to them. When faced with news of a forthcoming change, think through the different perspectives that you could have about the change, both positive and negative. The perspective you choose will determine your experience of the change, or in other words ‘what you think is what you get’. One way of changing our thinking is to view change situations as opportunities, both for improving and developing the work we do and for our professional development. Change is the path to personal growth and professional development by forcing us out of comfortable and predictable grooves. Rather than channelling all your energies into maintaining the status quo associated with resistance to change, ask yourself ‘what can I learn from this?’. Change is an ideal opportunity to develop skills and broaden knowledge to be ready for new work challenges and to keep up to date and sustain employability for your professional future. ‘Future-proof’ your skills and be alert to trends in the wider HE environment that may indicate a need to adapt your approach to respond to changes outside of the organisation. Being an effective manager can become especially challenging when faced with conflict and increased anxiety during periods of change. Your team will be looking to you for information and answers. Be mindful and respectful of people’s fears and concerns, especially if there is a backdrop of fear of cutbacks. It is easy to assume that all change resistance is conscious and deliberate; this is not necessarily the case. Before your team members are really ready to embrace change, they must be convinced of the personal and professional benefits to the team as well as to the institution. In order for change to be successful there needs to be a clear imperative for change and a compelling future vision that is an improvement on the present state. Articulating the purpose of change and the context within which change is happening implies being honest, open and clear in your communication about the changes, which is critical to supporting colleagues through periods of uncertainty. Help team members to keep sight of the long-term vision whilst supporting them through the short-term issues. Communicate change in a positive manner through influencing and persuasion to help team members to understand the positive outcomes that may be realised as a result of the change. Set the change within the context of professionalisation and team development. Rather than being passive receivers of change, encourage colleagues to actively engage in shaping the change to meet the needs of the team and its clients as well as institutional objectives. This will increase their confidence to deal with current and future changes. One example of a positive team building activity is to focus on the opportunities that the change might offer by undertaking a brainstorm to articulate a vision for how the team will work better and how its services will be improved once it emerges from the short-term challenges of implementing the change. Someone rightly observed that if there is one thing that is constant, it is change. Change takes place everywhere, every second and if we are to thrive and grow as HE professionals we must embrace it and make out of it all that we can.

http://cpdframework.aua.ac.uk/content/embracing-change