Talents and Change in the workplace

The only thing constant in life is change. Change happens in every role we play. As parents, our children grow up. Change. At our workplace, we get promoted or the company downsizes. Change. Our friends move to another city. Change. If change is the only constant, why are we resisting it so much? Here are a couple of reasons as outlined in Kinicki and Kreitner (2009):

An individual's predisposition towards change: some people learn to handle change and ambiguity as a child. These individuals will handle change with patience, understanding and flexibility. Those who did not learn how to handle change, will not trust the changes implemented. Some talents resist change. Gallup's definition of talent is “our natural recurring thoughts, feelings and behaviour”. According to the research done by Gallup, as seen in Clifton's StrengthsFinder assessment, there are some talents that are very comfortable with change, like the talent of Adaptability, Strategic and Arranger. There are some talents that are very resistant to change, talents such as Discipline, Belief, Analytical and Responsibility, Deliberative. It could be that the individual's predisposition towards change is because of the natural way they think, feel and behave. Nature and nurture.

Surprise and fear of the unknown: when you are not warned of changes, or the changes are so radically different from what you know, you fear the implications of those changes. The talent theme of Futuristic and Strategic has the ability to adapt quickly to the unknown. Could it be that their talents could cause less fear then over the unknown?

Climate of mistrust: mistrust between management and employees can cause the change process to fail, for no other reason than mistrust. Mistrust causes secrecy which causes mistrust. A trusting environment causes managers and employees to be open and honest with one another about the changes that are being implemented and the implications thereof. If there is trust between the parties, both will walk the extra mile to implement the changes necessary for success. Some talents may look like they are mistrusting. Talents like Deliberative and Analytical, Relator, Competition,

Fear of failure: employees and managers alike might cause doubt in capabilities. They might loose self-confidence and their self-efficacy might decline, which has an impact on their work. Loss of status and/or job security: technological changes threatens job security, as technology is doing more and more of the work previously done by employees. Middle management resist changes because restructuring often means they loose status or get downgraded to a lower level. Talents that fear failure are Responsibility, Maximizer, Competition and Significance.

Disruption of cultural traditions and/or group relationships: when new teams are formed, diversity appointments are being done or team members are being promoted, there's a change in the relationship dynamics. It takes time to adjust to these changes, sometimes there is no adjustment. The talent of Includer has a need to feel that no-one is left out. Harmony wants peace. Empathy will feel the disruptions very intensely.

Personality conflicts: conflict between different personalities will cause delay and major disruptions in the change process as some employees will fight change just because they don't like the person implementing the change. Employees that could fight change head-on might have the talent of Command, Belief or Responsibility.

Lack of tact and/or poor timing: the way announcements are made about change can bring resistance to change. No sensitivity or lack of information will bring major uncertainty. Implementing change at the right time is also important. Talents that need time to adjust to change is Belief, Deliberative, Responsibility, Analytical and Intellection

Past success: people believe that strategies that worked in the past will also bring success now. The talent of Context will be the most likeliest to have this view. Context looks at the blueprint of the past, takes the nuggets and wants to implement it in the present.
People might resist change because they are in a comfort zone.


Magriet Mouton is a Level 3 Executive Talent Guide, and Head of Talent Mosaic Association