Thrive in Times of Change with Dr. Britt Andreatta
Change is inevitable, which is the irony of it. Undoubtedly, whether at work or in our personal lives, change is part of life. But why is change so difficult? It is natural for our bodies to resist change, and hence, too much change can lead to burnout. In this episode, we explore how to thrive through change so you can confidently meet any curveball that comes your way.
In This Episode You Will Learn About:
Why we are wired to resist change
Burnout as a result of change
Steps to take to thrive in times of change
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Wired to Resist: The Brain Science of Why Change Fails and a New Model for Driving Success https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997354739/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PK6CMQH03KQ45H4DJZ0V
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About The Guest:
Dr. Britt Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader who uses her background in leadership, neuroscience, psychology, and education to create brain-science-based solutions for today’s workplace challenges. Britt is the former CLO for Lynda.com (LinkedIn Learning) and has over 10 million views worldwide of her online courses. She regularly consults with organizations on leadership development and learning strategy. Britt is the author of several books on the brain science of success including Wired to Grow, Wired to Resist, and Wired to Connect. In 2021, she was named a Top 20 Learning Influencer and a Top 20 HR Influencer for Leadership Development.
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The Wonder That Is Brain Science
I started off in higher ed. I was getting my PhD and ended up staying at UC Santa Barbara where I was a Dean and a professor, and I studied student success. So I created a lot of student success programs for undergraduates, veterans, and graduate students. And I developed a pretty. Robust leadership development program. And then after being there 20 years, I've I felt like I was kind of done with working in that particular environment. So I jumped over to linda.com where I was the chief learning officer. And that's when I actually studied neuroscience. I just wanted to be better at my craft because I was designing, learning for all of our members as well as our employees. I was just struck by how much new information had been discovered about the brain and how we learned. So that turned into. A lunch and learn talk, which became a keynote, which became my first book.
And then linda.com was purchased by LinkedIn. I was certified in all the change management models. And as we were going through that acquisition, which I was personally very excited about, but still having this huge emotional roller coaster. And I realized we did not know anything about change. So I thought, huh, I wonder what brain science says about change. So that became book number two, Wired To Resist. I was like, I guess I'm doing this. I guess I'm gonna be the person that T. Neuroscience to the work world. So that led to book number three, which is Wired To Connect all about teams and inclusion and collaboration. And I'm currently working on book number four, which will come out in 2023, Wired To Resist, and it'll be about innovation, purpose, and potential.
I had no idea that your company was the platform for LinkedIn learning concept and where it's at today, how you have built this company and was providing so many different resources for your own students on education. And now it has turned into where it's at today, where. Thousands of videos that are on LinkedIn learning and everything from project management courses to job search strategies to leading through change.
Why We Resist
There's a lot of things that we go through in life, whether it's, changing in a job or whether it's something that's happened personally in our lives, we're constantly going through change. and especially in the workplace, when we've had change through this pandemic, whether it's expansions or downsizing or difference in working remotely Than the office and through these changes, sometimes we can resist a little bit. And so how are some different ways that we can thrive through change?
Well, let me first talk about why we resist, because I think once people understand that it's helpful, this surprised me when I was doing the research, but it turns out that our body sees change as potentially dangerous. So if you think about how we're wired, our amygdala is designed to kick off that flight or flight response to help us survive. And how it does is, our senses are constantly scanning our environment. And the first signal that something bad is gonna happen is something changes. There's a loud noise. There's a smell of smoke. There's a growl in the bush over there. So we're wired to see change as the precursor to danger. And we only kind of settle down once we get enough information to know that it's not so. We're not being difficult when we resist change. It's part of our biology to look at change suspiciously, and then oftentimes leaders, you know, they spend a lot of time thinking about a change and they announce a change, but we know that humans just naturally go through this process of first being skeptical, worried, maybe a little bit excited, but frustrated, stressed, you even depressed and anxious.
We go through a predictable pattern of emotions around change and that's because we're wired to look at it as potentially dangerous and look at all the ways it could go badly. Or all the things we could lose.
The good news is eventually, we work through that. It takes us a little while, but eventually, we get on board with the change we make sense of it.
Our leaders can do a better job of helping us get on board and get used to the change. And then we can even start to look forward to it and get excited about it. So that's the first thing that kind of gets labeled as resistance is just, oh, this is a little bit scary and I've got a lot of worries about it.
The second reason we kind of resist change is that we are habit-forming creatures. In fact, there's a part of our brain, the basal ganglia that's designed to help us take a behavior and turn it into an automatic pilot activity that we don't have to think about because the brain's trying to conserve energy.
We often are asked to let go of something that was comfortable and easy. And so we might even resist changing the behavior cuz we like the old behavior better. So those are a couple reasons why we resist change. and I like to just normalize that for people, because once you understand that you can be a little bit more patient with yourself, or if you lead others, you can be a little bit more patient with how they of respond to it.
Our brain is a meaning-making machine. So in the absence of information, we will always fill in worst-case scenario because that helps us survive. If we think of the worst, we're more prepared to survive. So that's why when I work with leaders, I'm always talking to them about you wanna be really forthcoming with the narrative and information, because if you leave them any room to interpret it, they're gonna go negative, not being difficult, being human.
Actions to Take Post-Resistance Phase
We kind of naturally do it on our own, but there are ways we can make it easier and faster.
First of all, hopefully, your leaders are doing a good job of giving you consistent, transparent information, but if they're not, you can empower yourself by going and asking questions, and digging around a little bit. finding out what's really happening and maybe just checking your assumptions and just being aware that you're gonna naturally kind of jump to the worst-case scenario.
So participate by digging in a little bit. I also think that change is, easier to go through when you do it with friends so that you're kind of on this journey together and supporting each other. So if you're going through a major change, you know, intentionally partner up with people who are going through that change too, and then you can support each other through.
I also like to remind people that change is stressful on the body. know, before the pandemic, I used to say it's like flu season. And when flu season comes around, we do a few things to take care of ourselves. We'll wash our hands more, we'll eat more veggies. We'll try to get better sleep.
Now that seems, like a it brings up post-traumatic stress syndrome for people when we talk about it now, but. You have to remember, change is stressful and you can only handle so much change at a time. So like my husband and I, every six months, we kind of evaluate how much change is coming, how much change is on our plates and we're intentional around, okay, we gotta dial up self care or whether we better dial down socializing or, know, taking trips at that point.
Be intentional about managing your energy and self-care. And then a last tip is, you know, if you can gamify it at all, it helps. Like if you can, with your teammates, create points for achieving each level or intentionally having high fives and pizza parties, the brain wants some reward for going through change.
And what we typically do is we start critiquing it. Oh, we're over budget. Oh, we're behind schedule. And so the brain, if it doesn't get some reward for all that it's already doing, it can start to say, oh, change is always negative. So we. More resistant to future change. So we still wanna hold people to good standards of behavior, but first say high five, we accomplished X, Y, and Z. Now we're two weeks behind schedule. How do we go faster? Don't skip the reward and high five part - it's important.
Be Grateful and Happy
The science is super clear about gratitude. It shifts us. And so does mindfulness practice. Both of those things literally shift your brain and your ability to be more resilient in the world.
The other thing that you talked about was that mirroring of body language and smiling versus laughing and that empathy. And it reminded me of a time that I was in a counseling session many years ago. I think it was part of my premarital counseling. we were talking about sometimes road rage. And when you're in the car with somebody and they get that immediate road rage.
And the counselor said while. You are caught up in the moment of what's going on with whether the person cut you off or not know that your reaction fills the car with the energy. And so everybody in that car is experiencing that same frustration and anger and energy. The same applies to, if you're walking through the door and you're constantly bringing all that stress from work into your household, you're then bringing that onto your family as well.
Be Grateful and Happy?
Accept that change is the only constant in life. It's the one thing we can count on. And yet our reaction to it is to resist it and stress out about it a little bit. I just think that's super ironic.
However, once you understand that about your biology, you can now start working with it and give yourself some compassion around how you respond. You can start taking better care of yourself. You can start advocating for your needs and asking questions. Once you kind of understand how it works, then you can partner with your own body and and then move through, change in a much more effective way.
Burnout is a medically diagnosable state of physical and emotional exhaustion. How it shows up is we start to feel a decreased sense of accomplishment. So things that used to make us feel good, or our jobs that we used to like, or our teams that we used to enjoy being around were just feeling super. About it all. And I think that's driving the great resignation is that people are feeling like I don't like my job anymore, but really that's burnout talking and it, and it maybe it's fine that you're switching jobs don't feel bad about that.
The toll that has taken on us physically and emotionally? Lean into self-care, play and vacations, and you'll start to feel better.
