Dancing with Cyberspace
As one who teaches how to cope with our ever-changing world, it was with some fascination that I watched the brouhaha over the recent changes to FaceBook. For those of you who don’t use FaceBook, just know that they made changes and many people passionately protested, much of it not nice.
I’ve witnessed similar cries of protest from my partner Bill whenever Yahoo changes their email program. If I hear a holler of frustration coming out of the office, I know it has something to do with the computer and, more specifically, changes made without his being consulted.
To all of you I say, with love and respect, “Embrace change. It is your friend.” If change makes you want to chew the furniture, then the Internet is probably not a good place for you to be hanging out.
I can think of no better arena to practice your skill at Dancing With Change than your computer, be it a desktop, a laptop, a notebook or a smartphone. I say that because if you own them, you are likely highly motivated to use these tools and they are (and always will be) evolving quickly and without advance notice.
Those changes made by faceless programmers somewhere out in cyberspace are not designed to drive you crazy. They’re actually intended to improve things for you. Of course, we’ve all heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but truly, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore notwithstanding, there are no geeks conspiring against you. The geeks with bad intentions could care less about how you socially network; they’re too busy hacking your bank records.
Here is why technical changes frustrate us so much. Think about it: you already knew how to use the program on your computer. It took awhile but you finally mastered it. Now someone you’ve never met and will never see has decided to “improve” things and overnight the program you knew how to use looks or acts completely different. What you are faced with is a learning curve. And learning curves make us nervous. We feel vulnerable, an emotion no one embraces.
When you’re hit with a change, the very first question to ask is, “Do I have any control over this?” If the answer is no, then the next question is, “What do I need to do to adjust?” (Bill’s answer to that is, “Use my computer as a Frisbee.”)
The good news is that medical science tells us that learning keeps our brains agile. According to Dr. Mehmet Oz: “Education is key to slowing brain aging. Simply put, the more you know, the more you stretch your brain’s capacity for learning.”
So the next time a program change happens that triggers a negative reaction from you, instead of beating up the developers, post a “thank you” from your future self. After all, the 80-year-old you will, because of them, have an extremely agile brain from continually trying to figure out how to “make this #!?*# thing work!”
Dancing with Upsets
My favorite definition of the word upset is: an unfulfilled expectation. You were expecting X to happen but Y happened instead and now you are upset. Expectations play a big role in Dancing with Change. Whether you are a child, an adult or an adult behaving like a child, when you become upset it is important to ask, “What was I expecting to happen that didn’t?” You will be blown away by how quickly you can get to the bottom of what’s upsetting you.
“What were you expecting to happen that didn’t?” is also a great question to use when interacting with others. Think about how useful this question would be when you are:
– Managing a team
– Providing customer service
– Parenting
– Interacting with your spouse
– Trying to please your boss
Imagine being at the Customer Service counter in a store. A clerk is trying to calm an upset customer. The clerk says, “I really want to get to the bottom of this. Please tell me what you were expecting that didn’t happen.” What you are seeing is the clerk setting a context for the conversation that gives both parties power to resolve the problem.
The uses for such a brilliant question are endless. Whenever someone is upset, ask the question and then listen. Many negative situations can be diffused as a result. The act of merely asking the question implies that you care about why the other person is upset and that alone carries a lot of weight.
I am on vacation with my grandchildren. What a luxury—a week to just hang out by the beach and have fun. As I watch them interacting with their parents, I am struck by how often we ask (actually demand) that children dance with change.
Last night Abbie and Christopher wanted to go miniature golfing. We adults couldn’t get our acts together in time for that to happen. Naturally, they were upset. We used it as an opportunity to teach them about dealing with change. We wanted them to understand that life doesn’t always go as one might hope.
This morning, as I reflected on the event, I started to wonder how understanding we adults would have been if the roles were reversed. When children delay something that we want to do, are we equally understanding? I haven’t always been. Usually when children are the delay factor, I have gotten upset and what follows is a lecture on the “rules” or “respect for others’ time.”
As a child, the rule I always hated was, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Yuck. The Dancing with Change version of that same hypocrisy is that we want everyone else to fully embrace the DWC step Accept that which cannot be changed. However, when it comes to our own response to change, acceptance is nowhere in sight. We want to manage and control events in the face of overwhelming evidence that it can’t be done.
So, when children get upset over changes they cannot control, we lecture them about being more accepting and “rolling with the punches” that life inevitably delivers. But heaven forbid we should follow our own sage advice.
As you go about your day and week, and you get upset, practice asking, “What were you expecting to happen that didn’t?” Then, start noticing where it would be effective in situations you observe. This question is a powerful tool that will help you more gracefully Dance with Change.