All change – getting and staying motivated

Change and change management have been organisational buzz words since the 1990’s, with many employees, departments and companies going through various ‘big change programs’. Change requires energy and focus and staff have often been left weary and de-motivated after them.

Sometimes, in both our personal and organisational lives such change can become essential for survival.

Even so, that imperative should not excuse management (or ourselves as we are responsible for our personal organisation – in effect you are your own leader!) being organised enough to understand, and explain change that change involves a whole set mental, emotional and behavioural processes often amongst a large number of people who interface with each other.

To re-iterate, change is as important at the personal level as it is that the organisational level.

Organisations, which includes our family’s friends and social circles, are made up of individuals who need to move from being unaware of the need for change, through to an acceptance, willingness and commitment to it. Then not only does action need to be taken, but effort also needs to be put into sustaining it.

All good leadership programs will explain that human change is a psychological process (having a simply communicated coaching psychology is therefore essential), which best unfolds as a deliberate and incremental approach that takes account of stages of a change process:

• Pre-contemplation – the stage before awareness of the need for change.
• Contemplation- where serious appraisal of the need for change is undertaken.
• Preparation – where planning and decision making take place and commitment is made.
• Action – if successful action is taken on the plan then the next stage can be tackled.
• Maintenance – this is about sustaining what has been put into place.
• Relapse – can happen at any stage and is when the changed behaviour is stopped.

A clear coaching psychology or model, allows each stage to be identified and the appropriate tools and techniques adopted to motivate, stimulate and encourage change.

Motivation is the energy behind the imperative for change and at different stages, a coach may use varying tools to support the client(s). Motivational Interviewing is a useful process in the early stages, followed by the use of cognitive and behavioural technique’s in order to build the processes for delivering the change.

Maintenance can be achieved best when belief about the desirability and need for the new behaviour is strong, robust and lead to healthy patterns of behaviour. These in turn become a ‘virtuous cycle’ that is they are self-reinforcing.

Whether it is personal or organisational, the coach will help you build robust, healthy and rational belief systems that can enable future success.