Change is its own reward

I first met the man about three years ago. He didn’t have enough enthusiasm for technology to even be called a “Luddite.” Technology was the enemy, and it was going to be the ruination of his industry. No question. No discussion. That lunch was agonizing for me as I envisioned his industry passing him by. It was obvious to me his future was threatened by his inability to “get with the program.”

I had lunch with the same man recently. Between encounters his smart boss put the technology-hater in charge of the company’s efforts to enter the 21st century.

Lunch was a revelation. The man was a creative font of ideas, innovations and boldness. He understood the technical nuances well enough to proffer ideas to take advantage of possibilities competitors have missed. He has invented solutions for problems some people haven’t even recognized. He has obviously immersed himself in the lingo and in the practical realities of the new technology.

At some point in the last few years, a switch had gone on in the man’s head and rather than seeing technology as the fatal blow to his beloved industry he now sees it as the industry’s salvation. His enthusiasm for “helping my industry survive and prosper” was inspiring. The man is in his late 50s, but he displayed the excitement of a 20-year-old. The world is now full of opportunities and options, rather than full of doom.

The problem is not unusual. A lot of older employees and executives hate the change assaulting almost every business, from trucking to insurance to education to media to medicine to law. Some pine for the old days and move into the new era with feet dragging. Others refuse to change at all. They force their managers and executives into difficult positions. Often top managers get so frustrated they give up on the foot-draggers.

My friend and his boss offer a couple of wonderful lessons on how to improve attitudes toward technological change.

Rather than shout, scream and cajole, the boss made my friend responsible for the new technology. The boss trusted her instincts and decided my friend knew his industry well enough to invent creative solutions, if he could stop viewing progress as the enemy. It was pretty apparent to me, and apparently to his boss, that as long as my friend viewed technology as a problem, rather than as an opportunity, nothing positive would happen. The boss is not very tech-savvy either, but she recognized that my friend would change only when it was in his own self-interest to change. That’s the way most humans work.

The trust shown by his boss not only fully empowered my friend, it challenged him. He is not a man who likes failure so he had to perform despite his initial misgivings. That challenge forced him to rethink the issues. Early readers of this column, and many people who have seen me speak in person, know that I like to hold up a Starbucks coffee cup and ask people what they see. They inevitably describe the green Starbucks logo. I feign disgust and tell them that’s not what I see on the cup at all. Rather, I see interesting text describing some important issue. I then point out that if we turn the cup around we understand that we are both correct. We must turn our metaphorical cups around to see both sides of every issue and problem.

When given genuine responsibility for the future my friend turned the issue around and found exciting new opportunities instead of doom. He found creative ways to explain those opportunities to his entire organization. That required courage, commitment and an open mind — three qualities that can energize a workplace. If those are absent, then stagnation, discontent and negativism will hijack the company.

Tip for your search: What can’t be done in your job or at your company? What challenge seems insurmountable? Ask yourself if you really “own” the problem. Explore whether you have made the problem your opportunity or do you still treat the challenge as your doom? Looking at it in a different way may release you to fix the problem and create an exciting future.

Resource for your search: “The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander (Penguin Books 2002).