Self-Esteem and Change Management

Although there have been many eras in the past characterized by change, the constant and rapid change that characterizes our society today is unprecedented, and unending.
Here are some dramatic facts from Jay Conrad Levinson, The Guerrilla marketing Guru to illustrate:
• On average, around the world, an innovation in digital technology is copyrighted every three seconds. That’s no misprint; that’s a fact.
• More than half of many companies’ revenues, from technology to food service to banking, come from products and services that didn’t exist two years ago.
• On average, multi-national corporations listed on the New York and Tokyo stock exchanges lose half their customers within five years, half their employees every four years, and half their investors in less than one year.
We never know what today or tomorrow will bring. What we do know is that things are changing rapidly, the rate of change is getting faster and we need something strong to respond to this. The thing that we need is high self-esteem. Behavior is a reflection of self-esteem and a mind that distrusts itself cannot decisively do what needs to be done. Change requires decisive action.
Resistance to change and fear of the unknown characterizes low self-esteem. High self-esteem correlates with comfort in managing change. The more rapid the rate of change, the more urgent the need for high self-esteem.

What we believe is what we make happen. It is very difficult for people to act beyond who and what they believe themselves to be. If you’re a business owner or an executive you also need to know that is very difficult for people to act beyond who and what the CEO is.

An organizational culture that supports high performance, personal accountability and the creative initiative needed to manage change is the same as an organizational culture that supports self-esteem.

The same conditions for self-esteem are the same conditions for:
• Change Readiness; Dealing With The Rate Of Change
• High Performance Behaviors
• Innovation And Creativity
• Superior Customer Relationships
• Bringing Out The Best In People
• Operating Better Under Pressure

I recently gave a talk to a group of CEOs about self-esteem. They were aware of how much their self-esteem contributed to the creation of the organizational culture. What they had not previously considered was the need to be aware of and support the self-esteem of their managers and staff.

Self-esteem is a reflection of behavior in every aspect of your life. So if you or your company is experiencing challenges around managing and responding to change, consider the likelihood that self-esteem and organizational supports related to self-esteem need to be increased.