A Break - Its Time To Change

Todays blog is from the fabulous human that is Sharon Green, who is a change expert and career interim who as a People Project Manager specialises in People Change and leads the fantastic HR Interim Community and I have personal experience of her acting as a connector within the HR sector.

You can connect with Sharon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongreenchiara/ and on Instagram and BlueSky as @SharonGChiara

As always, please take some time out from your busy day, to relax, read and reflect and share any thoughts via LinkedIn. Over to Sharon…..

As someone who works in change, you’d think this topic would be a breeze to blog on. Sometimes closeness and familiarity can block as well as flow.

A few years ago, I had one of those years. Two injuries within six months of each other left me in a cycle of impairment, surgery, hospital appointments, recovery and physiotherapy. I was recovering from one imposed and beyond my control change to my everyday life before being hit with another.

I felt emotionally spent.

My resilience bank account felt depleted.

I felt a little cursed especially as it coincided with a family bereavement, the first of three that year. I was simultaneously sorry for myself, and grateful things were not worse and for all the support I had.

I often talk about a change toolkit in organisational life but don’t think of it for myself. Why? When the experiences are different yet so similar.

My confidence was shaken and for a while I followed the hospital outpatient’s physiotherapy protocol with compliance rather than confidence. I trusted them. They’re experts, surely, they must be right. They’d deemed my efforts as not good enough. Their quick assessments felt generic and lacking empathy. I felt judged.

I was given some rudimentary tools to d-i-y physio.

I cried at the second appointment and after the third too.

I went to see my sports physio, he’s actually an osteopath but I’m not sure I know the difference. He was reluctant to comment as he’s not a specialist in post hand surgery but he’d been seeing me for my other injury and when I arrived for my appointment so low he listened, empathised, and offered some more tailored support based on what he knew about me.

I was relieved.

I felt listened to.

I knew I couldn’t go back to the hospital again and hope that the fourth person I’d see would be different. I cancelled. I shared my feedback. I could see they were under pressure and I spoke to them to share my experience; in the hope it might help them too. Giving constructive feedback certainly helped me move on. The pressure to comply was lifted. The judgement I felt at the lack of progress against a chart and recovery roadmap was gone.

I worried it might be the wrong decision. I catastrophised about the possible end results. I had vivid dreams my broken, damaged fingers might never heal. I was so relieved to get the sign off from the surgeon and endorsement that I’d made a better-than-expected recovery.

One thing that helped me more than I knew it would, was a simple reframing technique.

Notice what you can do today that you could not do yesterday. Focus on the movement you have, not what you had before, look at everyday tasks as physio and measure your own progress against what’s good for you.

It’s over two years now. Whilst things are not the same, they have moved on.

I have extra tools in my personal change toolkit. I also take these experiences into my work.

I reflect on the importance of trust building, the delicate balance of power held in external expertise, the reminder that people need different things at different times, and how change imposed, chosen or even welcomed….is likely always to be accompanied by an emotional as well as logical or even physical reaction.