Ways to Improve Your Change Resilience

Organizations expect Project Managers to be masters of change. A new project brings change to an organization. However, how employees perceive this new change depends on several factors, including the environment, leadership, and themselves. Some changes are easy to make but can make it challenging for employees to transition through. For example, the pandemic forced many employees to start working from home, which at first glance is a simple physical change in location for a Digital Marketing Agency. However, the psychological and social implications can leave employees feeling overwhelmed and unable to transition to this new work environment. This brings up the topic of how Change Resilience can help you excel in a fast-paced industry.

Change resilience refers to an individual’s ability to adapt and cope with change and can help you work through significant changes in the workplace. However, as with anything in life, there are ways you can improve this as a skill and train yourself to become more change resilient. Overall, learning to become more change resilient will reduce stress, leading to better outcomes for you and your employer.

This article gives three tips to help build your change resilience and thrive in fast-paced industries such as Digital Marketing.

1) Get A Bit Uncomfortable

It makes sense that as creatures of comfort and habit, it can be uncomfortable to step outside your comfort zone in your day-to-day activities. So my advice is to always take the challenging task, apply to that new role, and constantly be stepping outside your comfort level to try new things. As a professional from the live events industry, I was always thrown various events and projects that were seldom the same. This was the greatest thing that I took away from the events industry after moving to Project Management to find creative solutions and constantly adapt to changes as they arise. Taking on these new, unfamiliar tasks will climatize you so that you can eventually take on more significant and more challenging projects.

2) Peer Support

The next tip is to surround yourself with individuals, coworkers and leadership that believe in you, offer support and genuinely want to see you succeed. If you are not receiving this support from your coworkers and management, you can ask for feedback. Ask what you are doing well and what you can work on to help the team so that you can enhance your strengths and improve on your weaknesses. Having that support system with your peers will help during times of high workload or if you need to get questions answered. It also helps to like your peers and if you’re able to find humour and joke around to get through the tough, stressful times.

3) Education

When I first graduated with my Bachelors of Commerce from York University, I thought that was all the education I would need as a professional. Fortunately, I have always been a curious person, and as an Events then Project Manager, I’ve always wanted to understand the projects and tasks I was undertaking. This led me to pursue my MBA, my Project Management Professional (PMP), and various micro-credentials in education, ranging from courses in Adobe Creative Cloud, AutoCAD, and Google Data Studio. Keeping yourself up to date with the latest applications and technologies will give you solutions to help automate more of your tasks and allow you to work more efficiently. In addition, spending less time on menial tasks will free up your time to focus on more complicated tasks and projects. This will also keep you from becoming overwhelmed by new technologies and changes in your industry.

These are just a few tips and ways to become more change resilient. If there are any you think I missed, feel free to leave them in the comments below.