For many of us, making the change has brought about a positive outcome, but identifying the need for a change is often a symptom of being stuck in the first place.
Often the real development area we need to work on is never really addressed.
For example, you might have changed jobs, because you perceived your old boss to have been a ‘control freak’.
Your new boss isn’t, however you don’t write any more business (possibly less). So, in this scenario, we’ve moved away from the thing that caused the ‘pain’ but never got to work on the real cause in the first place.
The trick with identifying and working on real change is therefore to identify the solution as the problem.
In this example – changing jobs – ‘avoiding’ the old boss may be the root cause of why you perceived them as so controlling in the first place.
The issue actually isn’t about the boss (although I’ve had a few in my time whom I’ve wanted to get away from), it is about your ability to communicate with him or her.
Very often control freakery is a symptom of the boss wanting to see a change in their employee and/or lacking sufficient evidence that they trust the person to do the job to the required standard.
Working on better communication to give a manager confidence that you do know what you are doing and can hit that target is often all that is required. After all, they are probably under pressure from above too and just need some evidence to send up the line.
Therefore, it is always an idea to delve deeper into the real reason why you may feel the need to change.
Often, there is a real chance to bring about that change within the current role perhaps with some basic communication and a sharing of one’s concerns or feelings.
Of course some people simply need a new challenge and there is nothing wrong with that.
However, for many, it may only need a slight tweak or an open discussion to deliver the necessary change.
Perceived ‘ruts’ can be climbed out of, if the root cause of any problem is tackled. If not, then change can often just be climbing out of one rut into another.
Peter Welch is head of sales and distribution at Bridgewater Equity Release
