“Managing the Biggest Dynamics of Change” was the August Metro St. Louis PMI Monthly dinner topic, presented by Lillie Brock, on August 21, 2019 at the Hilton Garden Inn & Regency Conference Center in O’Fallon, Illinois. Brock kicked off her presentation by facilitating two different team building activities. 

In the first activity, Brock had dinner participants partner together. She said "I want you to look at your partner, examine them and make a mental note of their appearance in 60 seconds." She then instructed the group pairs to turn around, not facing their partner and told them to change five different things about their appearance in 60 seconds. When the groups turned around, she asked what is different about your partners. She repeated this exercise another time and asked for five additional changes and for the partners to share what is different. 

In the other group exercise, Brock shared a slide that contained many different words (eat, dream, slumber, relax, bed, nap, night, etc.). She removed the slide and asked everyone to write down all the words they could remember. Some wrote sleep, tired and other related words, while others were able to remember the actual words.  The purpose of these activities had to deal with perception and how people see things that others may not and how our brains interpret what we see. Brock said this is no different when it comes to Corporate world. Brock shared that navigating organizational change is critical to success.

“Many organizations do not always give people enough information to fill in the white space,” Brock said. She went on to say that navigating organizational change is critical to success and it is often the hardest thing for organizations to address. 

People often react to change differently and don’t always see the whole accurate picture of the change. 

Brock shared her impression of navigating change, by introducing the audience to what she refers to as the “Change Cycle Model”. Throughout the model there are various stages that people go through. The first stage is Loss, then Stage 2 is Doubt, Stage 3 is Discomfort, Stage 4 is Discovery, Stage 5 is Understanding, and Stage 6 is Integration. Having knowledge of the Change Cycle Model can help others get through change successfully. 

Ananda Jayaraman, monthly dinner attendee commented, “This topic was very apt for our line of work. I like the fact that she was able to present such a difficult topic with such great ease. My takeaway is that change is constant in all walks of life. The more easily we adapt to it, the more successful and less stressed we are.”

More information can be found in the book “The Change Cycle- How People Can Survive and Thrive in Organizational Change,” by Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock.

Join us for the next dinner meeting in October. Read more and register here!