Change at work, whether by choice or by circumstance, can be unsettling at best and traumatic at worst. When we’re jolted out of our comfort zone we may end up feeling disengaged, disempowered and stuck. Or stressed and burnt out as we grapple with increasing uncertainty about our future.

At first blush, it may feel like circumstances are happening to you. But in many respects, they’re actually happening through you, since you always experience change through the filters of your current way of being and doing. In that way, change is nature’s way of helping you see what was previously hidden in your blind spots.

When we find ourselves confronted by change or our reactions to it, it’s an opportunity to discover areas of our work or business where we’ve previously been operating from a loss of authentic power, freedom and self-expression.

It points to the places in our life where we’ve made small trade-offs to stay safe and survive while compromising our vitality and diminishing our greatness. Places where our previous ways of being, thinking and doing may have kept us comfortable, but also playing small and settling for less than in our resources, relationships and results.

That might be hard to hear, but it’s actually good news. It means that you have the power to shift how you navigate through change to create something that is better aligned with who you really are, instead of who you’ve unintentionally become.

But transformational change rarely happens on it’s own without investment. Even though change offers one of our best opportunities for personal growth, professional development and organizational evolution, it can also trigger our survival response, causing us to dig our heels in even further taking on positions, roles, or transactional approaches that protect us from risk and theoretically help us avoid failure or looking bad.

Constant change within the tech industry is par for the course. But when we try to navigate change as a series of tasks and transactions and ignore the transformational aspects that it stirs up in ourselves, our employees and our leaders, we suffer huge losses and waste in terms of time, money, effort, relationships, communications and our greater potential.

It also lowers morale, engagement and confidence in leadership, while increasing resistance, entropy and the likelihood of failed implementations down the line. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

For individuals and organizations who are in the midst of ongoing change or who have big, hairy, audacious goals ahead, three things are vital to fostering change as the gateway to greatness in yourself and your organization:

• a fertile environment and commitment to learning and growth in the midst of complexity and change,
• the systems and support to explore and disrupt the unconscious limits and habitual tendencies that keep people (including your leaders) playing small, and
• recognizing yourself (and everyone in your organization) as a powerful co-creator in the process.

That’s why this fall, I’ll be hosting Owning Your Power at Work 2.0, revised and updated to support individuals who work in or lead tech companies in the midst of ongoing organizational change or who have big, hairy, audacious goals in this area.

Owning Your Power at Work 2.0 is available as a public program for Individuals (starts the week of Sept 17th) or as a private customizable program for Teams/Organizations of 12 or more.

DM me to learn more or use the links above to register.