Chapter 5: Talkin’ ‘bout a reformation: Embracing constant change - A conversation with Cassandra Worthy

Cassandra Worthy is a fellow keynote speaker who believes that we can use our emotions as a signal to understand our responses to change and then grow through change rather than resisting and struggling. Her company, Change Enthusiasm Global, helps organisations build resilience and readiness for change. In this conversation we look at what this means and how you can use your emotions – and help others to do the same – as an invaluable tool in a business environment that is always changing. Key pointsResponses to change are different person to person and change to change. But when we are introduced to change we are usually invited outside of our comfort zone. Emotion comes up when we face change. Anticipation, expectation, fear and a whole range of other emotions bubble up. There are no ‘wrong’ emotions. What choices do we make then, and what choices could we make, at the intersection of change and emotion? Change today isn’t linear. It’s stacked and layered on top of each other. It is everywhere and ever present. You have to keep practicing ‘change enthusiasm’ which is a mental framework which helps you, time and again, face in to change and embrace it. When employees start talking about feelings, leaders need the same courageous strength to express theirs. And this needs to be consistently practiced both at work and outside, when going through change and when not going through change. Those organisations that don’t embrace emotion will become obsolete. The role of leaders is to demonstrate empathetic, vulnerable leadership where they create the safe courageous space where people feel comfortable expressing their truest emotions. Sometimes the ‘doing’ is simply ‘being’ – holding the space for the person expressing emotion. They don’t necessarily need you to problem solve. They just need to be understood. That’s it. One of the best things you can give your employees is a better, healthier, more emotionally self-aware you. One of the best things you can give your employees is to work on ‘you’. When you feel these emotions, it must mean you are being ‘welcomed in to a moment of opportunity’ – a change to grow and develop. https://changeenthusiasmglobal.com