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it arrives (choices that may ultimately have a very negative impact on your career as a manager), this doesn’t have any effect whatsoever on its arrival. Change will come no matter what you do.

Everyone deals with change in his or her own unique way, but most people go through these four major phases when they are first confronted with change:

1.Deny change. The most common initial reaction to change is to deny that it exists. Consider the manager who refuses to cut costs (including redeploying or laying off excess workers) to ensure that the products manufactured by his or her company are priced competitively with the flood of similar products from China. Although the writing is on the wall—in big, bold letters—this manager refuses to see it, putting the company at risk as consumers turn to the imported products, which provide much the same level of quality for significantly less money. The manager should move on to the next phase of dealing with change before he or she does irreparable harm.

2.Resist change. Eventually, after denying that change has arrived, in the next phase of dealing with change, people decide to acknowledge its presence but to resist it nonetheless (perhaps hoping that if it is resisted long enough or vigorously enough, it will simply go away, although it never does). If you hear yourself saying things like, “Let’s wait a while longer to see what happens before we make a move,” or “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” then you can be certain that you’re resisting the changes that have arrived on your doorstep.

3.Explore change. After resisting change—unsuccessfully—most people begin to realize that they aren’t going to be able to stop it, so they slowly begin to explore it instead. This is where managers decide to conduct a study on the suggested change, have a meeting about it, or initiate a pilot program to get a feel for the impact of particular changes—on a temporary, nonbinding basis. There’s still

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no commitment to accepting the change, but people are definitely warming up to it.

4.Accept change. The final phase of change is acceptance. Instead of ignoring or fighting the change that has arrived, the change has been fully accepted and integrated into an organization’s thinking, processes, and perhaps even its values. Managers and employees alike have embraced the change and are now on the lookout for the next changes in the organization’s environment.

The next time a significant change approaches your business environment, try to become aware of what phase you and your associates and colleagues are in. Are you denying the change? Resisting it? Or exploring and accepting it? Understanding where you are in the four phases of dealing with change can help you get to the final phase more quickly.

DEALING WITH CHANGE AT THE MICRO LEVEL

Is it just us, or does work seem to be busier and more urgent than ever before? It’s not like there have never been crises or rush jobs or deadlines in the past—there have been—it’s just that the amount of quiet time that allows us to recharge our batteries for the next onslaught of craziness seems to be on a dramatically downward swing.

While as a manager, your job is to keep an eye out for long-term changes looming on the horizon, it’s the short-term, day-to-day changes that threaten to take the heaviest toll on your overall health and well- being—both physical and mental. Plans change at a moment’s notice, meetings get rescheduled, new product rollouts are accelerated—or slowed down—budgets get slashed, and employees quit and are gone. If there’s one thing you can count on in business today, it’s that tomorrow everything will be different.

The simple fact is that change happens, and you can’t do anything about it. As mentioned in the previous section, you can try to deny it, ignore it, hide it, and pretend it doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t change

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the fact that change has arrived. It simply delays the responses that are necessary to deal with it and eventually allow it to become a part of your organization’s status quo. Despite this, most managers seem to spend their entire careers trying to fight change. We can only ask this simple question: Why? Without change, organizations would not progress, they would not have an opportunity to serve new customers and take advantage of new markets, and employees would not be able to move forward in their careers. Change allows all this and much more.

We asked Bill Taylor, owner of Lark in the Morning, a musical instrument retailer, how he discusses change with his employees. In his mind, discussing change is like swinging back and forth on a trapeze in the darkness:

You have a good grip. You get some confidence and maybe even do a pike or hang by your ankles. It begins to feel really good and really comfortable. Then, off in the darkness, you see another trapeze bar swinging toward you, and you get that old familiar feeling in your stomach. You have to completely let go of this trapeze, fly through the air, and grab the next trapeze. You’ve done this before. You know you can do it again. But it always creates anxiety and uncertainty, maybe even a sense of dread. So you let go, and start flying through the air. And what you have to remember is that the very uncomfortable place in midair is the only place where personal growth occurs. Maybe you don’t get comfortable with being in the air, but at least you recognize the value it adds to your life. When you grab the new trapeze, personal growth is over.

SEVEN WARNING SIGNS THAT

YOU’RE FIGHTING CHANGE

Are you fighting change in your organization, or are you embracing it? Unfortunately, while you may think you’re pretty open to change and perhaps even welcoming its arrival, you may be deep down inside a

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change fighter. If you’re not sure which side of the fence you’re on or if you are absolutely certain that you’re a change lover instead of a fighter (and you wonder why everyone else seems to think the opposite of you), then be sure to be on the lookout for these seven warning signs of resistance to change:

Warning sign 1: You’re playing a new game with the old rules. As games change, you’ve got to learn the new rules; otherwise, you are bound to lose. As change washes over your organization, you are indeed playing a new game—a game in which the old rules are about as relevant as last week’s losing lottery numbers. If you find yourself playing the new game with the old rules, that’s one sure sign that you are resisting change in your organization.

Warning sign 2: You’re avoiding new assignments. Most people welcome new job assignments, especially when they help lead to new challenges, new opportunities and accomplishments, and perhaps even promotions and pay increases. If you find yourself hiding out when the new assignments are made, however, this is a sign that you have decided that you much prefer the comfort of the status quo to the adventure that is part and parcel with change.

Warning sign 3: You’re gumming up the works. Paralysis by analysis is a term used when a manager spends far too much time analyzing every possible angle in making a business decision, often bringing the organization to a grinding halt as it awaits the results of all this study. While a certain amount of analysis is required to make informed decisions, today’s fast-changing global business environment might not wait around for you to make a decision that takes too long. If you’re slowing down the decision-making process in your organization to a snail’s pace, there’s a good chance that you’ve become someone who is resisting change rather than embracing it.

Warning sign 4: You’re attempting to control the uncontrollable.

Some things just can’t be controlled. You can’t make the value of

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your company’s stock go up when the markets have decided it’s time to go down. You can’t prevent a tornado from tearing up the railroad tracks into your plant in Topeka, Kansas. You can’t stop your competition from introducing a new series of products specifically designed to steal your key customers. If you’re trying to control the uncontrollable, you are not only wasting your time and energy—time and energy that would be better spent on dealing with the effects of such changes—but also clearly resisting the changes in your business environment that are not only unavoidable, but inevitable.

Warning sign 5: You’ve become a victim of change. There is perhaps no sadder sign that you’re resisting change than becoming a victim of it. Instead of embarking on the arduous path of dealing with change and figuring out how to use it to make your organization’s products and services more responsive to your customers’ needs, you take the easy road, stubbing your toe along the way and ultimately sitting out the change altogether. Sitting on the sidelines nursing your wounds might be a comfortable place to be, but you can be sure that everyone else will eventually pass you by.

Warning sign 6: You’re waiting for someone else to step up to the plate. Do you find yourself dragging your feet, hoping deep down inside that someone else will jump in and take charge—per- haps another manager, your boss, or even a competitor? Remember, waiting does not make change go away; it only delays an organization’s response to it. This delay can give the competition the leg up it needs to pull ahead of your organization in the marketplace.

Warning sign 7: You’ve become paralyzed. In its ultimate form, resistance to change results in paralysis; that is, the manager affected by it cannot make decisions or lead initiatives in response to change. The result? Utter failure. Your job as a manager is to make things happen. When you can no longer make things happen, then you have outlived your usefulness as a manager, and you become expendable—not exactly the place most employees in today’s leaner organizations want to be.

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What can you do when you find that you are exhibiting one or more of these seven warning signs of resistance to change? Become a change leader; that is, proactively lead change in your organization instead of resisting it. Here are some ideas for how to do that:

•Embrace the change. Instead of avoiding the change or pretending it doesn’t exist, deal with it—head on.

•Be flexible. Changes are occurring with increasing frequency in today’s fast and furious global business environment. This requires managers to be more flexible than ever in anticipating change and then dealing with it.

•Be a model. Employees look to you to show them the behaviors that they should emulate. If you are a change leader instead of a change resister, they, too, will embrace change and use it to their own advantage.

•Focus. But be sure to focus on what you can do, not on what you can’t do.

•Recognize and reward. You get what you reward. If you reward employees for embracing change, they will do more of that behavior.

The warning signs are just that—warning signs. If they have become a part of your working life, it’s not too late to do something about it. Learn to embrace change and to become a change leader. Your organization will thrive as a result, and your employees will become part of a vital workplace that is really getting things done. The result is bound to be good for the bottom line and for your own career—two outcomes that any manager would welcome any day of the week.

WHEN CHANGE BECOMES CRISIS

Change can be a very subtle but powerful force. Like a glacier slowly meandering its way across the face of an alpine mountain slope—mov- ing just a few feet a year—much change in business occurs at a pace

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ASK BOB AND PETER: I was recently promoted to a su-

?pervisory position at a small community college. I will be supervising former coworkers. Are there any web sites

where I can pick up hints or tips on how to manage our department efficiently? This is my first position as a supervisor, and I will be receiving training in a few months but for now I am on my own. My first idea is not to change anything because things were running just fine when I accepted the position. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Do you agree with that as a beginning plan?

Congratulations on your new position! We agree that you should take some time to get your bearings before you change anything in your department. Spend lots of time listening to your staff and getting to know their successes, needs, and problems. After you have a chance to get a good look around, you may then decide whether to make changes. Insert the words management or managing into your favorite Internet search engine (we prefer google.com), and you’ll come up with thousands of sites to peruse in your spare time. However, the quality of these sites varies considerably. Two of the best sites are the sites run by FastCompany magazine (http://www.fastcompany.com) and Inc. magazine (http://www.inc.com). Both are loaded with huge archives of articles on how to manage effectively. FastCompany specializes in being on the cutting edge of management—aiming itself toward today’s companies that are ever striving to create products and services faster, cheaper, and better. Inc. specializes in small businesses and in all the issues that small business owners and managers encounter as they grow their operations. You might also take a peek at our book Managing For Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003)—it’s chock-full of information that is essential to any new manager.

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that is almost imperceptible to those who experience it. But there is another kind of change—crisis—that happens all of a sudden, is often unpredictable, and has the greatest chance of throwing your organization’s best-laid plans into disarray and your employees into a state of frenzy.

Such was the case with the September 11, 2001, tragedy, which— in the course of just a few minutes—threw entire companies and, indeed, the American economy itself into crisis for months or even years. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes can create crises that damage organizations, as can illness, strikes, sharp price increases in production resources (e.g., the price of gasoline, energy, or steel), unexpected drops in consumer demand, and many others. While organizations can be prepared for such crises—and they should have plans in place to deal with them—for the most part, they are unavoidable.

But there is an entirely different set of crises—ones that are avoid- able—that can also damage an organization. These are the kinds of crises that you as a manager will confront on an almost daily basis (in direct proportion to the number of direct reports you have and the complexity of your organization and its products or services) and that you must deal with immediately as they arise. Consider these kinds of avoidable crises (and what you as a manager would do to avoid them or deal with them when they arrive):

•Your sales manager, who has perhaps been spending a little too much time on the golf course and not enough time keeping an eye on his staff, doesn’t notice that one of his salespeople has begun to insult and berate some of the company’s best and most loyal customers. This situation does not become apparent to you until you are called into the CEO’s office to explain why these customers have threatened to take their business elsewhere.

•After being passed over for promotion three times with no explanation from management, a key employee (who, coincidentally, is

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loved by your major customer’s buyers) announces her resignation, effective immediately.

•Afraid that he will be punished for making a mistake, an employee working on the assembly line in a high-volume manufacturing facility ignores a “minor” production flaw in one of your key products. This flaw goes unnoticed for weeks until customers start rejecting shipments of the product and demanding immediate replacement— costing your company millions.

Whatever the source or the nature of the crisis—whether it is avoidable or not—the fact is that as a manager, you will be expected to deal with it. This means being flexible, being smart, and working hard. But, above all, it means being prepared for the most typical crises that can hit your organization—through written plans and procedures—and then taking on the crisis sooner rather than later.

If you don’t have a plan or procedure in place to deal with a particular crisis, what then? Our advice is to be fast and flexible, to rely on the advice and input of your associates and colleagues, and to do whatever it takes to deal with the matters at hand. This is no time to start a three-day weekend, to let everyone go home early, or to put off a meeting to deal with the crisis until next week. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work—now!

Last, as a manager, you have significant control over avoidable crises and, ultimately, the impact that they have on your organization. If you ignore problems that seem insignificant today, they can blossom into the mother of all crises literally overnight. Keep a close eye on what’s going on in your organization, your industry, and your overall business environment. If you have unhappy employees, persistent manufacturing flaws, complaining customers, or changes in your industry that threaten to drive clients to new products and suppliers, then it’s in your interest (and vital for your organization’s long-term health and well-being) to deal with issues like these as they arise and not wait until they become full-blown crises.

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T H E R E A L W O R L D

Some people say the more things change, the more they stay the same. That is, we are fast becoming an age in which the norm is change, and, as a result, we must learn how to get things done in a constant state of flux. Waiting until there’s time to thoroughly weigh the pros and cons and make a clear, rational decision is increasingly a luxury. Instead, managers must make their best decision based on limited information within tight time constraints. The best managers make assessments quickly with the best available data and then live with their decisions. The worst are timid and struggle with coming to a decision and then almost immediately second-guess themselves, revisiting the decision and often regretting the original conclusions that they made. Strive to be the former type of decision maker.

HELPING EMPLOYEES DEAL WITH CHANGE

As you have seen and experienced in your own organization, change is everywhere, and it directly affects every one of us. Sure, as a manager, you may feel that you are at the epicenter of the change quake, but don’t forget that your employees are also affected. And, because they are often even less able to control or have an impact on how the organization deals with change, they may feel more vulnerable to its effects— perhaps even powerless. As a manager, you are in the best position to help your employees weather the changes that they experience on the job. Here are a number of ways to do just that:

•Be interested in your employees. Employees appreciate people—es- pecially their managers—who show through their deeds and actions that they really care about them. While you should always show a sincere interest in your employees and in their successes

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