Looking for a snag in the fabric
Content warning: gratuitous use of sewing metaphors
My colleagues and I are waist-deep in a multi-year change initiative — a transition to a new financial system along with a myriad of process improvements. Each of us on the Change Management Team (hooray for change management!) has been assigned two or three partners across the University with whom we work closely to help them facilitate the change in their respective school or unit. I’ve noticed at our change management report outs lately that all of us seem to be dealing with increasingly crotchety change partners. Their complaints, while legitimate, can sometimes seem nitpicky when we’re all sharing amongst ourselves. When we discuss their concerns, the tidal wave of irritants they voice to us can feel overwhelming.
Rather than add my irritation at their responses to the tidal wave threatening to drown us all (“Can’t they see we’re all doing our best!?”), I have tried to remember a fundamental truth about change: there’s always a point, late-midway through any big change, where you just can’t stand it anymore. Kind of like the eighth month of pregnancy . . . or like reading the second book in a trilogy and slogging through a whole host of complications and unresolved issues. It’s that good old-fashioned “darkest hour is before dawn” stuff.
It’s like having an endless stretch of fabric in front of you, and noticing every flaw and snag, so you can pick at it and pull it.
When I remember this, I don’t blame my change partners. We’re in a pandemic, full of unique challenges, so unique that our individual experiences are largely unknowable to one another. When you fold in a sweeping project on top of that, it’s a recipe for peak irritation. It isn’t as though their complaints aren’t legitimate, but I can keep them in perspective, remembering that the fabric isn’t torn — it’s just snagged. Not everything has to be patched up, or seams ripped out; sometimes we’re just talking about a little snag that needs to be trimmed or worked back into the fabric.
I’m getting really metaphorical now, but it’s no less true that we’re all pretty frayed and triggered by small irritants. This is a normal response to change, and it’s not directed at any of us. I remind myself to pause, breathe, and work the snag back into the fabric. Handle it carefully, gently, and with any luck, you won’t open up a big ratty hole. And in the end, we’ll still have something out of which we can make a beautiful finished product.
