Adaptability - How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For

Mary Jane Ryan's Book on AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For offers helpful guidance for all of us coping with change that is suddenly forced on us.  Mary allows all of us a brief period of time to BMW (B*tch, Moan and Wine) prior to adapting to change.

Like stressed lab rats we all need a bit of TLC for comfort during an unexpected stressful live event.  Lab rats stress is reduced by petting the fur.  For each of us we need to figure out what positive thing in our life reduces our stress.  Stressed individuals suffer from tunnel vision unable to think creatively about possible alternatives.  Setting aside time to do a brief mindfulness meditation can be one way to reduce stress.

Mary recommends parallel processing several options at once when responding to an unexpected career change.  This is similar to spreading risk by taking a company stock option, cashing it out and investing it in a wide array of different investment categories.

Katie Goodman's book, Improvisation for the Spirit,  serves as inspiration for the tactic of Ready, Go, Set recommended by the author.  The author recommends testing and evaluating solutions before they are 100% ready.  You can make adjustments based on evaluation and improve the product.  I've done this with video production and it's helped out with the learning curve by learning rapidly from my mistakes.  Hint: Keep the camera stable when doing green screen work. 

Mary frequently references Amanda Ripley's excellent book, The Unthinkable.  People respond to unexpected change in many ways.  Many people are simply frozen by fear.  This is why flight attendants are trained to yell at people during an emergency to break people out of this state of inaction.  After the World Trade Center plane crash people milled about for up to 45 minutes prior to taking action to save themselves.  Mary advises finding someone who is taking action, model their behavior and get yourself out of this unproductive rut. 

The book was helpful to me as our office will be moving from our comfortable building with private offices that we occupied for the past 60 years to a new collaborative work environment.  I am trying hard to move past the BMW phase and work to make the new surroundings less miserable for my co-workers. 

Letting Go of Your Tortured Mind - 33 min.