In this episode of the podcast Adam Salgat and Sarah Weisbarth discuss ‘change’. Adam shares his personal story of dealing with a genetic degenerative muscle disease and Sarah walks through the process of change.
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Adam Salgat:
Hello and welcome to the Our Community Listens podcast. My name is Adam Salgat and with me today is Sarah Weisbarth, leader of alumni engagement. Sarah, thanks so much for joining me today.
Sarah Weisbarth:
It is always a pleasure to be here, Adam.
Adam Salgat:
Today, we’re going to be talking about change and we’re not talking about the kind of change you get back when you give somebody a five and it costs $4.25, not that kind of change. We’re talking about a bit of behavior change, acceptance of change, and accepting change is where I wanted to start this conversation with you, Sarah. Many people that I know, and just many people that I’ve heard over my years have said, “I really struggle with change,” or, “I don’t like change.” What do you think causes those people to have that type of guttural reaction?
Sarah Weisbarth:
It’s interesting because there’s all kinds of fun phrases out there like, “The only constant is change.” And then there’s tons of memes right out on Facebook right now. We live in the Northern part of the United States and the leaves are changing colors. So there’s all these memes out there that it says, “Nature’s about to show us the benefit or the beauty of change.” We know that change exists, and it’s almost like we’re trying to make it feel better for people with the memes or with the little slogans like, “The only constant is change,” but you’re right. People really do struggle with processing change. I don’t mind change. I don’t have a huge problem with change. I’m sitting here thinking like, “Well, why don’t I?” And maybe that’s my ability to process it. What do you think?
Adam Salgat:
Why do I think people struggle with change?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah.
Adam Salgat:
That is a hard element for me to kind of understand as well. I personally also have a pretty high level of acceptance of change, and I believe it goes back to accepting at a young age, that I have a type of muscular disease. So I knew at a young age, my life was going to be full of change. When I was diagnosed as a teenager, I knew that my hands were going to change and my feet were going to change, and the way I did things were going to change. The type of disease we have affects the X chromosome, so it affects my brother who’s 16 years older. So I kind of saw a prototype in front of me, like how he opened jars of pickles, how he buttoned buttons, how he grabbed small objects.
So all of those things being laid out ahead of me 16 years in the future almost, made me come to a realization that I need to find an acceptance of this change and/or I could grow up bitter. So that, to me, now being 35 years old and having gone through my twenties, being able to run and play volleyball at the age of 21, but at the age of 26, needing to wear ankle braces and then by the time I was 30, wearing more ankle braces, and now at the age of 35, wearing a leg brace. All of these things for me have been major changes, but at a very young age, I knew it was coming. So I personally have this very high level of acceptance when it comes to change because of some of the core values that I’ve built to accept them.
My wife is an interesting person in my circle of people. We all have a circle of people and obviously, our spouses are right there to be the first ones. She had to deal with change through loss. She lost her father at 19. What’s interesting though, is through that process, she had to find different ways to accept change. Lots of things, what she expected of her life and her family really changed when their dad passed. So it has been different for her, but her personality is one of routine and one that likes to know what’s coming. When there’s a change in her midst, there’s definitely a lot more questions and a lot more anxiety.
So it’s interesting because we’ve seen each other go through change over the years and I personally struggle sometimes waiting for her to get to a point that I feel like I get to quickly. So when you asked me, why do I think people struggle with change? I think it mostly just comes down to the type of personality that has been built through their teen years and through their early ages and the type of experiences that they’ve been through that helped mold whether or not we quickly accept change or whether or not we need more time to process change.
Sarah Weisbarth:
I’m literally just sitting here reflecting on this. I think you’re right. You said the word, “process,” multiple times, like how do we process change? And there was also an underlying theme of things that are out of our control.
Adam Salgat:
Yes.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Coming to maybe that place of balancing out our thoughts and our reactions to not having control over a situation or not having control over change that’s presented to us, is part of that process of moving towards acceptance. I don’t even know. The word, “commend,” is in my mind and that’s not the best word for me to use right now, but listening to your story, we’ve known each other for a while and I’ve never heard that story. So thank you for sharing that with me and sharing that with our listeners. Your life story has really given you incredible perspective and I’m guessing has probably really equipped you to deal with all aspects of life differently.
Adam Salgat:
I try to, and I think that what I also like to say often is a couple of things. One, everybody has a cross to bear. Mine’s easier to see. Others have mental illness, for example. You can’t see it as blatantly. The other is you have to move forward with whatever circumstances you have. What we’re going to talk today about is accepting when you have certain circumstances and you’re comfortable in that space and someone comes to you and asks for change. So a lot of those underlying notions are built into the content of our community lessons. Tell me a little bit about that significant behavior change.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Thank you for asking that and thank you for that transition because I feel like I could have just kept on chatting with you very personally, but we have an obligation to our listeners to help them understand how do we go through change and how do we support change? The reason that we really emphasize significant behavior change as part of our content is because we could come in and we could do a training. I can teach you the skills of reflective listening. I can teach you the steps of effective confrontation. I can remind you that the communication cycle exists.
But when we talk about it being about a personal experience and growth, it does require a significant behavior change. If you’re going to start to apply the knowledge that we share, the information that we share, the skills that we teach, the steps that we practice, you’re going to start to change relationships in your life. If you’re going to start to change how you show up for people, you’re going to have to make a choice somewhere in that process to say, “You know what? I’m going to do things differently,” and hopefully, we’ve created an environment that motivates individuals to make that personal choice for change.
Adam Salgat:
So it sounds like in order to get those skills that we’ve been taught, ingrained in us, it does take, and you’ve mentioned it in there, personal growth, personal reflection. Is there anything else you’d like to add in that space?
Sarah Weisbarth:
People aren’t going to change… I’m not going to change. I guess let’s talk about me. I’m not going to change unless I’m motivated to change to meet my need and I’m certainly not going to change if the environment that I am is not supportive of that. So for example, when, let’s say, I was going through class and I realized, I tell the story often, that part of the problem in my marriage was my desire to control the situation and my lack of listening to my husband. That really ties back to my need to be right and have things done well. So all of my behavior was coming out of me wanting to meet my need for things to be right and done well. That was hurting my relationship with my husband. In order for me to actually change the behaviors and start to work on acceptance and start to work on listening better, which were my two big things that I came out of attending class with, I have to recognize, what do I need to change in me?
Do I need to be right all the time? Why do I need to be right? What’s driving that? That’s the personal growth and that reflection that I feel has to happen in order for someone to be motivated to change their actual behavior. I feel like it can kind of go both ways when we look at behavior change. I can put some steps in process. For example, it’s a new week, and so I’m trying to get up in the mornings and exercise. I’m trying to drink more water. I can do some real specific tasks to motivate my behavior change, but in order for it to be something that becomes part of who I am, this intrinsic aspect of how I connect and relate to people or maybe how I take care of myself, I have to find that personal growth, that personal motivation that says, “You know what? I’m going to do things differently and that starts with me.”
Adam Salgat:
It sounds like in your marriage then, you looked at what it is that you really wanted to change. You wanted to keep your marriage. So that was a large motivating factor.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It’s important enough. So if it’s important enough… We can look at this in any aspect of change. Related to the skills, it was very significant in my marriage and yes, my marriage was important enough to me that I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to do something different,” but my new exercise plan and health goals for this week is because I want to feel differently about myself and my body. That’s that motivation. We have to have that moment of like, “What’s going to drive that desire to change?”
Adam Salgat:
I want to bring up, we often say the words, “grace, and space,” I want to bring that up right now because forgive me, I don’t have the exact study in front of me, but with my background in learning about behavior change in the wellness realm and you brought that off as an example, it is a really quick example of that a lot of people can relate to. In my reading about what it takes to make a behavior change, when we have done challenges at the nonprofit gym that I work for, 66 days is how long it takes to make a behavior change, at least on average. Again, excuse me for not having the exact study in front of me, but that’s two plus months. So you have to give yourself a little bit of grace and space to know after week two, if you’re still struggling, that’s okay. If you want to make a change, it’s going to take time. Consistency is key to that.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Oh my gosh. Absolutely. You hear all kinds of things like 21 days, it makes it a habit. 90 days, it’s implemented change. So I love your 66 because that probably lands us somewhere in the middle. We have designed into our content that motivation and creating that environment for people to change. Then the question is, well, then what? How do we support people in change? You and I recording this part podcast regularly is part of, how do we support people in a change process? We can’t just be like, “Oh, change,” and presto, people change. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Oh my gosh, that would be lovely. But no, we have to support them. We have to walk with them. We have to provide them additional information and make it accessible to them. That’s why when you say challenges in a wellness environment, there’s a whole structure around supporting people going through change.
Adam Salgat:
Right. Exactly. I think I’d like to bring it back to our teachings in Our Community Listens class. We talk about effective confrontation and we work through the effective confrontation model, and what happens when we make someone aware about a change that maybe we need from them? Can you refresh us on that?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely. Oh gosh, absolutely, because this is actually where I kind of chuckle on my little change because when we go through that content, quite frankly, when we have to go ask someone to change, we would really just like them to change that quick; with the snap of the fingers, like, “Hello, I’ve made you aware of the problem. Now, just change.” That’s not how it happens. Whether that’s organizational change, whether that’s a personal change I’m going to make in myself, or whether we’ve asked someone to change a behavior because we’re having a problem with it, change does not happen just magically, presto in a blink of an eye.
Adam Salgat:
Right.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So if I hear, you’re asking me, “Let’s talk a little bit more about then how that process of change works”?
Adam Salgat:
Yes. Let’s talk a little bit about the box.
Sarah Weisbarth:
The box.
Adam Salgat:
You refreshed me on it before our recording today. When I saw it, I was like, “Oh yeah, this is the process that I have seen myself go through rather quickly and also, seen my wife take a longer period of time to get through some change,” going back to kind of our comparison at the beginning. For someone like her, takes her a week sometimes to get through a change and it may not be the exact same type of change, but I’ve gotten through that change in what feels like to me a day, and by the end of the day, I’m ready to take action. So let’s talk a little bit about that process.
Sarah Weisbarth:
We’ll talk about the box first. Then let’s talk about how people then move through the box because I think that’ll be really helpful to almost go back and answer our first question of why people struggle with change. So if we remember the box, and I chuckled because this is presented in the effect of confrontation section of our material, and usually by this point, it’s on our third day and we’ve learned so much that it’s an important, it’s an incredibly important concept, but it gets missed. So I’m glad that we’re spending the time really focusing on this concept. So if you guys all out there can literally imagine a box, like a physical box; when change is presented, when we’ve asked someone to change, or maybe when we’ve been asked to change, the first step of the box is that we’ve been made aware.
When we’re made aware, we’re still hanging outside of the box. But as soon as that awareness happens, we’re going to have some sort of emotion related to this awareness. Oftentimes, it’s kind of like an anxious type emotion. It could have some positive feelings related to it. It could have some uncomfortable or negative feelings related to it, but it’s this disruption which we just kind of call anxiety. As soon as we have that emotional reaction, we’ve stepped into the box or we’ve been put into the box. This is really important to remember. When we ask people to change, we’re actually putting them into this process and that’s where that grace and space is so important because we’ve put them in the box.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So I’ll keep going. So I have some sort of emotional reaction or some sort of emotion related to the change, and remembering that we have an emotion related to everything that happens in our lives, we covered that in the logic and emotion podcast a few weeks ago, where people have emotions. In order for people to begin to move to the next aspect of processing change, acceptance, people need to begin to rationalize the change. If they’re going to be able to engage their logic, their thinking brain in that process, we have to provide them that grace and space through listening to allow the emotion to release, and then there’ll be able to rationalize the change. So we’ve made them aware that a change is happening. There’s an emotion related to being made aware. Then if that emotion can be released, people will begin to rationalize and accept the change.
Adam Salgat:
Okay, I’m following.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, but we’re still in the box.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
At some point, we want people to engage in change with their whole heart. We want them to really come to that point of attachment. I might’ve accepted the change rationally, but I’m not fully bought in. I’m like, “I’ll do it, but I don’t know about it.” So as we continue to support people through that process, when they can come to that emotional now attachment they’re fully bought in, and I’m literally pointing to my heart to the listeners out there, that’s when they’re fully engaged. So my head’s there and now, my heart is there. I’m in it. Then we begin to anticipate like, “Okay, cool. I get why the change is happening. I’m totally bought in.” Now, “Here’s what I think we can do. Here’s my action in this moment. How can I support this change?” And all of a sudden, we’re getting the hands involved of the action and the doing of being ready to change, and we move outside of the box and we move into that change.
Adam Salgat:
That’s very interesting. When I started thinking about all the different kinds of change that I have seen through my experiences and how some of them have been organizational changes, and when you talk about getting people to a point of being emotionally connected as to why this kind of change is being asked and why this kind of change is being made to maybe an organization, it’s interesting to think about how leaders can get people to that point and what does it take to get them to that point. That alone, I believe could be a podcast or conversation all on its own about how to get people to connect and what they care about.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Oh my gosh. Yes. This change process… So this change processes and individual process, but being able to step back and look at it from a team or an organization, it all still applies. The dynamics are a little different. You’re looking at it, as you were saying, if I’m a leader supporting my team versus, “Okay. Well, what’s happening for me in this change process?”
Adam Salgat:
So in those situations, whether it’s an organizational change or maybe someone has come to me and asked for a personal change, obviously you start feeling a little boxed in whether it’s constructive feedback or not, or constructive change or not. Either way, you’re kind of in this space. Can you talk a little bit more about how to get out of that box?
Sarah Weisbarth:
For sure. So we’re in the box. This is what’s happening for me. We’re boxed in and there’s really two aspects. There’s my realization. If I’m the one in the box, what’s happening for me, I have the ability to process through that much like you’ve processed through your change throughout your entire life. You went through the box. You took a look at the situation. You had some emotion about it. You took the time to rationalize. You had the example of your brother. Then there became this emotional attachment to it of, “This is how I want to live my life and this is how I’m going to be,” and now, that’s how you’ve processed through that change.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
I make that sound so dry and so simple.
Adam Salgat:
Well, you may, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a negative connotation. I will state to you, just not to step too far back in our conversation, but it is a constant acceptance. It is a constant being in that box. You trip and fall or you drop something and break a dish and you’re right back in that high state of emotion. You’re kind of back in that box of needing to accept that change. It’s become quicker for me because of the way I’ve developed, but it does not mean that I don’t end up in that space often.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Right. Absolutely. It’s not a linear process. We are in and out of the box. We are in all of the steps or the processes of change. We can get to a point where we’re attached, but then I’m like, “Oh, wait a minute. I need more information. So now, I have to go back to rationalizing.” So we can process ourselves. The point I’m trying to get to is we can actually process ourselves through the box. You’ve mentioned the example between yourself and your wife and the different ways that we see the world, and maybe our personalities or our tendencies. People do process change differently and we can support people through the process of change differently based on their needs.
So I’m going to take this back to our desks tendencies because that’s an easy way to categorize individuals. We will say that different people process change differently. So I’ll go with my C tendency. My C tendency, if I have information, if I know things, then I am going to be able to handle change better. I can use that for work examples. I can use that for home examples. I often say, “I just need to know what you want me to do. I just need to know what the plan is. If there’s not a plan, I’m happy to make it. I just need to know what the plan is.”
Adam Salgat:
Right.
Sarah Weisbarth:
That’s how my see processes change.
Adam Salgat:
The information helps you process.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yes. Absolutely. Information is crucial. But then if we look at some of the other tendencies, Is often want to know, “Well, how is this going to affect people?” How’s this going to affect me? What’s my role in this change?” And that can be personal change or even organizational change. How are they present in that change? And they’re very concerned about how is it going to affect our customers? How’s it going to affect my family? They’re thinking about the people aspect of the impacts of this change. So helping them understand their role in it and those people impacts will give them the again, information, but will give them the support to process through that change. You’re tracking with me?
Adam Salgat:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Okay. Then we come to as tendencies. As tendencies, remember things to be stable and consistent.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So change does not really sound stable and consistent to me.
Adam Salgat:
No, it’s the opposite.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Pretty much. So when we talk about change in our content, we often highlight that S tendency styles have a difficult time changing. I can see that, but I also feel like it’s real really more about, “Well, how do we support them more in order for their need for stability to be met?” So those are things like, “Hey, I’m working with this right with you. I’m not going to leave you alone in this change,” giving them that just positive reassurance that they have a place in this change process as well. I actually worked with an organization a couple of years ago around this content and their leadership style had D and I tendencies. So they’re very active, “Change is great. Let’s go.” One of their team members was very strong in her S and her C tendencies and really needed the information, really needed to understand how this was going to happen.
The thing that was going to happen is they were going to get a new facility. Their old office location was in the basement of a building. Now, we’re going to fundraise, we’re going to build, we’re going to design a whole new facility. When we were talking about how they process through this change, the individual with the S and the C tendencies looked at her leader and said, “Without you driving the change, we never would have gotten out of the basement.” I’ve thought about that so many times before as it relates to the tendencies, as it relates to change. Even though we’re uncomfortable with change, change is happening. If we don’t figure out how to get out of the basement, we’re not going to go anywhere and that’s really ties back to then the D tendency.
D tendencies tend to like change. That would probably be my answer if you said to me, “How do you feel about change?” My secondary tendency of D would show up and be like, “I love change. Change is great as long as I have all of the information and have a little bit of control over the change control.” [crosstalk 00:26:27] Yeah because the Ds are going to want control over the change, but they’re all about the change. They’re usually the ones causing the change quite frankly, because they enjoy change and they see the vision and they see the potential and they want to move people into their best selves going through that change.
Adam Salgat:
So even though we have a lot of different tendencies and personality, is there a particular skill that kind of helps people process change?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. So looking at the needs, we just highlighted all the needs of the individual tendencies. Keep that in mind. I would say the most important, the most important thing that you can do to support someone through change is to listen and just key back into those reflective listening skills because in order for someone to move themselves through the box, they have to be listened to. There’s really no other way to move from the emotion reaction that we’re going to have about change into all of the other steps of rationalizing it, getting attached to it, anticipation and action. So my core thing would be, you have to listen. Even if you’ve already gotten to the point where you’re so about this change and you’re ready to go with it, not everyone’s going to be there and the change might actually be happening because let’s be honest. Sometimes change happens and we still haven’t processed if we like it or not. We still have to listen to people as they process through that.
Adam Salgat:
Using as much patience as you can in that space as well for someone who’s already in a spot of ready for change and accepted the change.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It’s so easy to rationalize someone else’s change process, but we’re not the ones in it. We’re not the ones living it. They are. So if we want to help them move through that box, if we want to be a supportive leader, if we want to have a strong relationship with the people in our lives, how everyone is going through change all the time, it happens. It is the constant. So when people are going through, especially a major change, our job is just to sit with them and listen to them and then they can move themselves through that box. So just thinking about this need to listen to people, listen to our team, even if the change is happening, I had the opportunity again, to work with an organization that we’re going to hear from here in the future that is going through significant change in their business model and I spent an hour and a half, almost two hours just sitting with them, talking about this change process.
I said over and over again, “People just want to be heard. They just want to be heard.” And it was really intriguing to sit back and facilitate and watch because it was like, it’s not like people were opposed to the change. They just wanted to be able to talk about it and talk about how they felt about it and ask questions and just be heard. So we’re really going to… I don’t want to give it all the way, cause I’m really going to look forward to that whole podcast recording about talking about organizational change as it relates to leadership, as it relates to the team and the organization, but still at the core of it is, how do we support the people in our span of care in the process of change? And we’re going to do that through listening.
Adam Salgat:
That sounds outstanding. I’m looking forward to having that conversation with a local leader here in the Michigan area. Sarah, today’s conversation has been really great and I appreciate you listening to me talk a little bit about how change has been a major part of my life and will continue to be. For our listeners out there, what kind of key takeaways do you have for them at the end of today’s podcast?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Really just going off of your example in your personal share about your story is always to remember that there is a process to change. It underlies everything, and that it is not a straight linear process. It was a fluid process and that we are going through change always and to give ourselves that grace and space. And to also give that to others, recognizing that they’re also going through that change process and that people process through change differently. I think that would probably be the core. So change is happening. Remember, there’s a process to change. People process through change differently. And at the end of the day, if we just listen to people as they go through that process, we’re going to help them in that environment, create that environment to move into the change that we really hope they have.
Adam Salgat:
If you have any suggestions about subjects for our podcast, feel free to reach out through our Facebook page. And if you’re interested in taking a class, visit ourcommunitylessons.org. Thank you again for listening to our podcast and don’t forget each word, each action, each silent moment of listening sends a message. Therefore, you are the message.
