Too much change, but little to show for it?

Often change doesn’t work out. The annals of Management and Leadership literatures show us that. Change is difficult, unexpectedly difficult. If we’re lucky in coaching, we witness change with our clients in the room. But often real change back in the client’s day to day world isn’t as strong.  In Organisational Development, we witness structural change often, but not necessarily cultural change – even when coaching internally our leaders who seem to change right there and then! - back in context, things  stay the same.

If you believe in change for the good, you may be wondering why people don’t really change. And what you as a professional are doing that perpetuates that.

Resilience can give us a lot of the answer. If someone’s resilience levels are at coping levels – ie they’re doing ok but just – then from the Resilience Engine’s research, we know that no significant change is possible. Full stop.  Fact.  Not to be argued with, it’s just an is-ness.

No change is possible if people are at coping levels of resilience.

It’s just that the person has no capacity for change, and therefore none will happen. Indeed, if coping is chronic – so it’s been going on for a long time – then there really will be no change, instead there will be stuckness. We witness many stuck systems. We’re sure you know many.

Resilience in fact is a measure of our capacity for change. Understanding resilience levels as a first step is a ticket to setting expectations and pace. It also sets out the first paths for change. And therefore as practitioners in change, we need to understand resilience.

Understanding resilience, and working with what makes the difference at different levels of resilience, is transformative work. Resilience coaching is not that different than normal coaching except for one major thing. It is more rigourously ensuring that the coaching intervention matches the client’s capacity for change. And that means the work really does enable sticky change.