Change and how people deal with it depends on two important things; the personalities of the people who are affected by a change and whether or not the change is for the better or not.
Personally, I don’t like change unless the change makes things easier for me and I can adapt to it easily.
I am an adult with ADHD. I learn best by repetition meaning that once I learn a skill I can do a job very well by doing the same thing over and over again until it becomes second nature to me. The smallest change can throw me into an internal “meltdown” as I fear that I won’t be able to do my job as well as I have been doing. Once I have had time to adapt to the change I do well but often that chance is not always offered.
This is not to say I don’t enjoy challenges or that I dislike learning new things – it’s just that if the change involves learning something new in a job I’ve been good at, my fear of failure outweighs the excitement of learning something new.
I believe that most people adapt very well to change as long as the change or changes don’t affect them adversely. Most people are fortunate enough to have the ability to change courses easily and if the change is something that they have been looking for, it makes adapting that much easier.
There are situations however, where change makes what had been an easy and efficient way of doing a task more difficult for everyone and the outcry of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it !” will be heard loud and clear.
This situation can be found happening in the health care field where on an almost daily basis, changes are made in the paperwork that we nurses deal with every day. For the most part, these ohanges make charting and filling out important documents pertaining to a patient’s care and well being much more time consuming but no more effective than the old way it was done.
The frustration felt by many nurses because of these changes is a normal response to changes that do not expedite a task but only make it more difficult. Unfortunately, some nurses have left nursing because of negative changes and while this too is a normal response to constant frustration, it has affected health care for patients throughout the United States.
Change is good in most cases and change can occur more easily if those who will be affected by a change are notified ahead of time and they are encouraged to give feedback/opinions regarding the proposed change.
Open and honest dialogue will almost always produce a good response to change. Unfortunately, open and honest dialogue can be difficult to find in today’s world and until this is corrected , change can be hard for many people to accept.
