By Pamela J. Gallagher

If you’ve had to make any amount of small talk lately, you’ve almost certainly commented on the weather.

“It went from fall to winter overnight!”  

“I hear there’s snow coming later in the week. Hard to imagine with how unseasonably warm it has been!”

“We haven’t seen a storm like this in 100 years!”

Even with all the sophisticated tools at meteorologists’ disposal, weather is volatile, often unpredictable, and uncontrollable. Sometimes it seems like we’ve gone through all four seasons in a single day! Some weather events we can prepare for and handle successfully; we survive and even thrive under less-than-ideal conditions. Other times, weather can take us by surprise in its severity and leave us devastated, despite careful preparation.

It’s not just the weather that seems to bring erratic, unanticipated change. Changes seem to be escalating in multiple areas of life and society—or does it just seem that way because high levels of connectedness make us more aware of changes as they are happening, and increases our overall sense of changeability?

On a personal level, I am more aware of how change impacts the workplace than ever before. As someone who spent many years helping hospitals and health systems reach a place of greater financial health as an interim CFO and consultant, I’m used to being the new one in the office, the one bringing and controlling the change. Now that I have transitioned into a permanent CFO position, I have people on my team who are newer to the organization than I am for the first time in a long time!

I have been reminded that the workplace is an environment of continual change. Just like the weather, we cannot control the rate of change or how dramatic those changes are, but we can manage through those changes in order to keep our focus on the shared mission of our organization.

Here are a few mindset shifts that can help us manage change effectively.

1. Keep processes flexible while holding onto the value at their core.

When we needed a change of scenery on hectic days, a co-worker and I would often take a walk to the bakery near our offices. We always went the same way to the same bakery, until one day one of us suggested we try taking a different route. The path and the surroundings were different, but the mission (making it to the pastries!) was the same. Additionally, the way we navigated our new route was similar to how we walked through our usual route—we still said hi to people as we passed them on the sidewalk. We still noticed and commented on the beauty around us. But we had the benefit of meeting new people and noticing things about the neighborhood around the hospital that we hadn’t before.

Whether we make a change purposefully or a change comes upon us uninvited, it is possible to hold onto the organization’s values and mission, even as the way we express that value necessarily changes. The main thing is preserving the value, not the expression. 

2. Change is not all good or all bad.

We often talk about change in terms of “good or bad.” Just try to have a conversation about the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) to see what I mean! But I think that when we try to assign a “good” or “bad” label to a change, what we’re really trying to express is how heavily we as individuals are impacted and how it affected us personally. If we take a step back, we are able to see that almost no change is all good or all bad; there are upsides and downsides to everything.

When change happens, try to remember that the way you view that change and how it is viewed by those you lead and the people you serve might be different. Consider how you can help one another see the complexity of the change, and work together to maximize the positive effects for the greatest number possible, and mitigate the negative impacts. 

3. Growth is a choice.

John C. Maxwell is credited with the wise words, “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

This quotation suggests that people can grow and develop by taking initiative even in unfamiliar circumstances, pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone, and seeking new challenges.

As Maxwell says, change is as inevitable as erratic weather. How we respond to change is up to us and is what will determine our success.