Why is Change So Difficult?

Karen's career has taken her through various roles within the extractives industry, with a heavy focus on managing and executing projects involving the characterization and mitigation of environmental risks and opportunities. She offers strategic direction, consulting, training and implementation services in the realms of embedding sustainability goals and environmental assessment requirements into business operations, strategic plans, decision making processes, and project plans and execution.

  Change Management  

From the moment we’re born, we learn and grow by listening, observing and mimicking. We quickly learn from the “teachers” we have experiences with that there are unwritten rules in society. We learn "right from wrong" and are also shown the “right way" to do things. We are tested, graded and rewarded on these values our entire lives, through all levels of education and into our working careers.

Because we’ve learned to be respective of authoritative figures (including teachers, parents and industry leaders), we accept what we are taught. We trust that they know what’s best. We look for further leadership to guide us instead of questioning things as we might have done as a child. (Remember all those questions we used to ask, the ones that our children ask us now? “Why?” “Why?” “Why?”)

For years, we learn that to follow what is acceptable and well known is the norm. Over time, those “corrections” we are continually given tell us to stop asking. They discourage us, pushing us further and further away from the creative, alternative thoughts we might have—and diminishing the potential for flexibility, adaptability and innovation. Unfortunate, but true.

Natural Safety Barriers
Our personal adaptation is most strongly guided by our need for safety [1]. This is because our…

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