KGWorks

New Year’s Resolutions… On Track or Off the Rails?!

Publication 13, Issue 1

 It’s the end of January and it feels as though we’re being bombarded with chatter from the radio DJ to the blogger about New Year’s Resolutions gone haywire!   Seriously….give me a break!  It’s the beginning of a new year (still), and many of us have made commitments to “start fresh” in an aspect of our life.  But change-whether it’s a good change that we are choosing to make, or one that we didn’t expect-is hard!  Depending on our Playground Personality©, we might fear change, resist it, or embrace it.  Understanding how your Playground Personality relates to change helps you develop strategies to master it.

For me, an Organizer, it was easy to write down two or three things I want to do differently.  The tricky part-the part where most of us get hung up-is the how. Implementing change in our professional lives is just as difficult as conquering change in our personal lives.  And as managers, we have to consider how each member of our team reacts when change is on the horizon.  Here’s how the Playground Personalities respond to change:

  • The Peacemaker – who wants everything to go smoothly, might be fearful of how the change will impact him or her personally, as well as the people on the team.
  • The Organizer – who’s comfortable with processes and structure, can resist change, seeing it as disruptive to the routine.
  • The Revolutionary – is pretty resilient and a bit anti-establishment, so after some token resistance probably won’t care much about the new way (anymore than he or she cared about the old way!).
  • The Steamroller – will usually embrace change, so long as he or she thinks it was his or her idea that caused it to happen!

If you’re charged with making changes at work, consider a few tips:

  1. Understand your own Playground Personality and how you are responding to changes ahead.  If you can’t sell them to your team, they won’t buy-in, either.  They’ll see right through you!
  2. Know the Playground Personalities of your team.  Once you’ve got yourself on solid ground, figure out how to tap into the motivation or interests of the people who work for you.  If they have some investment in making change work, you have a better chance of success.
  • Peacemakers want the work to go well, but need reassurance before you can rely on this Playground Personality’s natural collaborative style.
  • Organizers are the team member you can task with leading the work to incorporate changes in systems and procedures.   This is what the Organizer does best!
  • Revolutionaries hate routine, so flexibility is their middle name!  They aren’t your go-to people when you need data or detail, so tap into their playful side to keep them happy and moving in the right direction!
  • Steamrollers, creative and philosophical, can be a real asset here.  They enjoy a little stirring of the pot, particularly if they believe that their ideas were part of the new mix!

One last tip:  Same goes for your New Year’s Resolutions, if the changes you are seeking are more than tweaks or adjustments, consider how you will install them, so they stick!

Happy New Year!!

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