#5 Thriving in Changing Work Environments

Hello listeners, and welcome again to our podcast Women's 's Career Mastery and today it's just Christine and Laura. We're going to speak about how to deal with sudden challenges and change at work. We do coaching and we found this theme is coming up. And as you know, there's a lot of changes in the organizations and this is more like universal, not just in one place but many places and sometimes it's really scary to experience the challenge or change at work especially. It’s closely related to us and impacting the way we work and how we have to make changes in our work as well. Laura, do you want to start about from it?

Yeah. I mean this is so prevalent today in a lot of the coaching that we're doing and what we're hearing. And so we wanted to do a quick episode on this to help again empower women through any of these challenges that they're going through and their careers. The challenges are multiple scenarios, right, Christine, we're hearing people  changing jobs within the company, organizational changes, manager changes. Pay changes.

Yeah, workplace changes, like you name it, right. So, like, what are some scenarios you're hearing?

Well, I think some of it is more about people talk about you know going back to work or going back to the office and not getting used to it. Some companies demand people to go back to work and I think this is kind of mixed feeling. Some people want to go back to work because they've been working at home and some people want to stay at home because they like the flexibilities. So I think that's the ballpark. And another thing is that different managers, different leaders, shifting and suddenly you are in a different culture, even within the same company, because it's a different leader, a different style of leadership. You get used to it. Again, you have to build trust. And I think that's not easy. It's quite complex that way because it's not just about the leadership but also the organization organizational changes. Laura, do you have anything else?

Well, you know what happens when those changes come up, right? We automatically get into some sort of defensive mode, right? Or? Negative mindset, like, resistance to this, right? You know, why do I have to make this change? Or why is this change happening to me? It becomes really personal and people tend to make it. Even more challenging than it needs to be. So again, that's why we really wanted to talk about this subject.

Yeah, and I can tell from my own personal story, the changes. That is so drastic and really shocking for me. And it was one time I was about to lead a very high profile workshop. Abroad in the States, so our company located in Canada and as I prepare. In the morning there was a call that we all have to attend and just about half an hour before the workshops, I was, I've been told that I was moved to another business unit. So I have to concentrate to deliver this workshop very well. But at the same time. I was like curious about why is it me? Is it the company? What's wrong? What's wrong with me? Or is there something wrong that I did and it's all in my head while I have to concentrate on leading this workshops and and that was really shocking. And uh, yeah. So I I can talk from a personal experience on that too.

You bring up a lot of memories, Christine, of similar situations, right? You're just about to do something, or you're on a really good track with a project and it gets pulled. The team has to change, something happens. And you think right away, what did I do wrong?

Yeah, you know, how did I, how did I get here? And you go to that negative thing. So we want to give you just some tips, three tips to help you get through that process. Of thinking through or working through a challenge or a change that comes to you so suddenly.

Yeah. Laura, do you wanna go for number one?

Well, number one is get clarity, right? You gotta understand where this change is coming from or where the challenge is coming from. So asking as many questions as you possibly can, maybe not in the moment. So like Christine, you were getting ready for a presentation. You can't ask questions at that point because you're thinking about, you know, doing a really good job on your presentation. But you can certainly take some time to write down a few questions and then go back and ask what is the change, Where is the change coming? Because the more you understand about it. The better you can accept it and the better you can work with it. Do you agree?

Yeah, I totally agree. It's. I think it's so easy, so easy as you know and you know, coaching, coaching a lot of clients. That is it. Like what? What do I do wrong? And we get into more self sabotage and finding what's missing or negative things about us. But what I learned is. The understanding of, you know, organization or workplace is a complex system, right? There are so many elements that related to one another and sometimes it's not really about us, well, maybe a little bit about us and sometimes it depends on where we are in the in the scheme of thing. But understanding, understanding the ideas of, it's all interconnected. Meaning it's not, it's not our fault most of the time. It's because of the dynamics that happen, you know, within the politics. Maybe different objectives and the leadership things can happen. So asking a lot of questions allow us to get away from our own negative thoughts about ourselves. And for me that gives me more broader perspective about what's happening. So instead of like. Blaming them of why they don't, don't why they didn't tell me, it's so easy to just tell me beforehand. I it's like understanding the dynamics of the workplace. I think for me that's that's the the biggest thing as a first start that a great, yeah, that's a great first start and you you know you may get the clarity and find you're still not good with it, right. But at least you understand it and you understand it's not based on your performance. Something you did right. It's something that's happening in the business that's causing the change. And once you get there, once you get to the point of, OK, this is, this is where we are and this is what we're doing, You have to make some decisions and one decision is to start looking further and opportunity, not an opportunity to leave the company, but there's an opportunity in a challenge, there's an opportunity and a change to create something new to help the business that you're working in. There's always. Some little space that you can start to build something or create something that will help in that situation or with the work going forward.

So I've seen this happen multiple times. If you don't get the clarity and you don't start to look at it as an opportunity, you sort of derail yourself and you derail the business and you have there's no, no winning there. So does that make sense to you seeing like holy, totally. I totally agree with that and and I think. This opportunity, you can see it in many different ways. For today and external opportunities, in any challenge that we have, there's always a gift. To grow, there's always a seed to grow. So by by getting offer maybe some anger or disappointment or frustration, we can take a look of what is the gift here, what is the opportunity here.

The opportunity could be within the company and if you see who's playing and what is needed there, then we can we can. Fill the gap if we want to and another opportunity is the internal opportunity, the insights, how can we grow in these kind of situations. And I think that's the biggest thing because if we always focus on the outside, the changes and uncertainty, uncertainty on the outside, it's really hard to deal with. And sometimes we need to find that opportunity inside. What can we grow in this? What are our strengths in this and resilience in these kind of situations that. Can bring in and you know change the atmosphere, right. Because sometimes when changes are doesn't negative things are happening. You know people don't feel safe but if we can be a beam of light even in the uncertainty that will help people around us something that's very important and at the very least in terms of the internal growth you overcome the challenge and you create something that. Helps in the situation you build confidence and confidence is really key in a career. So you always building something.

Yeah and Laura and I talk about this like because the opportunity could be outside you know looking for another job maybe you did satisfied but also inside within the company and I think that that's something that is overlook. You finding another opportunity inside the organization even though you don't feel you don't feel like where you are at the moment, but how can you find the opportunity within where you are? Laura, are you wanna expand on that?

Yeah, well, we, if we go back to the moment of, you know, get the announcement that there's a change or you feel unsafe and you feel threatened and you, you know, you know, a lot of uncertainty. You want to escape, You want an escape hatch. You want to leave. You're like, I got to get out of here like immediately. You know, people go to that mindset, right? And they may start looking like they may get on LinkedIn and start looking that night for jobs and start applying to jobs. That may be the right thing for you, but honestly, doing the work to go through the challenge, understand it, find opportunities and grow will then help you determine and make the next best decision for your career.

An escape, I guess, Right So. Alright, last, the last thing we want to say is the third thing is this, you know, look for support, right?

Yes. Now this is very important because sometimes within the organization we don't really like to talk about it. Within the same, you know, team or because it's really hard or our manager. But support can be, can have a very different form. Laura, do you want to give some examples on different supports?

Different of course. And you know to be careful with support too, because sometimes when there's change you can get on the bandwagon with everybody that's feeling negative and unhappy about it and you you really, you know, that just kind of grows in the negativity where you really want to. Get to I need help to support myself and the team. If there's a team on how to deal with this change and find the opportunity. So there are resources in the company. There's ways to have conversations with managers and leaders. HR, for sure. Um. And if you're really personally needing support, I mean, there's the company always has. HR has resources for you to reach out to external organizations for like mental health support or there are thousands of coaches online that you could always reach out to for specific situations that are highly skilled in dealing with challenges and changes, just like Christine and I.

Yeah, and that's it from what we have today. I hope it's useful. And Laura, do you want to close doing some closing remark on this?

Ohh, I hope you found this episode helped helpful. We're going to have more short episodes because as the topics come up, as we hear the themes of what people are being challenged with in terms of their careers, we're going to talk about it. Yes, stay tuned. Alright. Until next time, thank you for listening.