Dealing successfully with change has become a mandatory life skill in the business world. Change can be a positive experience when it is directed from within the individual and controlled by the individual. Even when circumstances appear “beyond one’s control,” individuals need to recognize those factors they can control and take responsibility for their own actions. Working Successfully in a Changing Environment gives organizations a competitive edge by showing employees how to process their thoughts and feelings and make responsible choices in dealing with ongoing workplace changes.

Course Overview

The purpose of Working Successfully in a Changing Environment is to help participants understand the process of change and acquire skills to enable them to cope with the feelings of anxiety, resistance, and confusion related to change.

Participants focus on changes they are currently encountering in their work environment, either as a group or as individuals. Course exercises can be related to these specific changes.

Through experiential exercises participants increase their awareness of their feelings about change. They study the four phases of change, Denial, Resistance, Discovery, and Acceptance, and relate them to their own situation to find a logical place to begin.

Emphasis is on understanding these phases and the feelings and behaviors associated with each. Participants learn to emerge more quickly from the resistance phase of change into an exploration of how they can work with the changes rather than against them. Participants learn to recognize what they can control, to pinpoint their needs in a changing environment, and to take responsibility for their own actions.

Course concepts are reinforced on the verbal, written, and kinesthetic levels, in interactive, participative exercises. Valuable tools and techniques learned for successfully dealing with change include:

“Unfreezing” old behavior patterns through self-motivation and awareness
Applying new knowledge and skills to develop new attitudes toward change and new behaviors for successful interactions in a changing environment.
Skill practice, group brainstorming, and the double reversal technique (taking negative thought patterns and finding positive solutions hidden in their opposites) to “refreeze” responsible new behaviors

The overall theme of this module, and the key to working successfully in a changing environment, is self-responsibility. At the end of the course, participants have new skills and techniques and an action plan to put them into practice.
Course Objectives

Specific objectives for course participants are:

• Acknowledge own response to change and identify present thoughts and attitudes about change
• Identify phases and steps in the personal change process
• Understand resistance to change
• Practice effective techniques to work through the change process
• Develop action plans to commit to change

Includes:
1 Leader’s Guide

LENGTH: 1/2 DAY or 1 DAY