Navigating Workplace Change And Creating Success With Brain School Techniques

The following is an edited excerpt from the book See Change Clearly: Leveraging Adversity to Sharpen Your Vision and Build Resilient Teams by Jacob Green.

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“There’s a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR, ACT IV

Greg Devereaux was quoting Shakespeare and poetically telling me to “take the leap.” It was the third time in as many weeks that the city manager of Ontario, California, had asked me to his office. Each time, he’d offered me a promotion to the position of Administrative Director in the police department, which I turned down each time because I loved my job at the Ontario Fire Department. Greg remained silent after quoting Shakespeare. I asked if I could go speak to my boss, Fire Chief Chris Hughes.

Not only was I surprised that the city manager would resort to a perfectly recited quote from Shakespeare, but I was also wary of leaving the stability and support that I benefitted from at the fire department. Just a few years prior my wife had battled cancer, and the men and women of Ontario Fire supported us through each day. I loved the job and loved the fire family. I walked across the parking lot from City Hall to Chris’ office and went in without knocking — our three-year relationship rebuilding parts of the department allowed for this.

“Greg’s quoting Shakespeare. What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“You know what you have to do,” Chris said. He was right. I made the long journey back across the parking lot and upstairs to Greg’s office and said, “I spoke to Chris. I’m in. When do I start?”

Never Ready, Slightly Terrified

Shakespeare’s words hang framed over my desk, and I look at them every day. They remind me that no one ever feels ready for the big changes in life, yet the leap is worth taking. Change, however painful, can bring great rewards and growth. I didn’t feel ready to get married. I didn’t feel ready to buy my first house. I didn’t feel ready to have children. I didn’t feel ready for the promotion and opportunity Greg offered me. I’m glad I did all of those things, despite feeling unprepared.

Most people who start a new job or pursue a new opportunity feel unprepared, overwhelmed, and even terrified at the beginning. They think they feel ready to take on new responsibilities and do something different. It’s more likely that what they are feeling is a need for change, a need for a new environment and new challenges, which is not the same as feeling ready to move up the ladder into a new supervisory or management position.

It’s important to recognize the difference between needing a change and feeling ready for change. When a person enters a new position or takes on challenging responsibilities — especially as a new manager or supervisor — rather than feeling overcome with joy, they may feel overwhelmed by a perceived lack of skills and the inability to handle the scope of the new position and opportunity, like I did. Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, says leaders may be suffering from “imposter syndrome” when they experience feelings of self-doubt, insecurity, or fraudulence, in spite of having received recognition for achievements and being called to take on bigger responsibilities by their organization as a result.

I know this to be true because every time I’ve been promoted, regardless of the position, when I tried on the hat of the new role and envisioned myself there, I felt overwhelmed by a sense of incompetency and unreadiness. I felt terrified on the first day of my new job in the Ontario Police Department, much like I have on the first day of every new job I’ve accepted. Not only did I have to learn where the bathrooms were, find people to eat lunch with, and navigate a different set of office politics, I had to prove my value to a new boss and new colleagues.

No Place To Go But Up

Although the pay raise and the opportunity for professional growth in the police department position were enticing, I couldn’t imagine not working for Chris Hughes and the rest of the fire department team. Chris was the epitome of a leader: decisive, stable, and humble, and every day was about growth. He was tough on me, had high expectations, and regularly pointed out my blind spots; but this directness allowed for rapid personal and professional growth and a sense that he was investing in me.

Three months into working at Ontario, Chris asked me to represent the fire department on a panel at a public event. The position on the panel next to the mayor and city manager rightly belonged to Chris, but he didn’t need the recognition, nor did he like to be in the limelight. The phrase he often used, which I have repeated on more than one occasion myself, was “successful, not famous.” He wanted the fire department to shine, and he liked to give others the opportunity to contribute.

I was on call 24/7 as the entry level disaster analyst and public information officer for the department, and I went out on calls at all hours of the night, any day of the week. I couldn’t get enough of my job. I felt there was value and importance in what I was doing, I knew who I was and why I was doing it, and I was serving a group of professionals that I looked up to. Legendary speaker Jim Rohn is credited with saying that we are “the average of the five people we spend time with.” I was surrounded by hundreds of people on a daily basis who I looked up to and who pushed me to perform at a higher level; I was certain I would work at the fire department for the duration of my career.

From the time I began in the fire department, I had admired Greg from afar. With so few opportunities to interact with him directly due to my entry level status, I made up excuses every chance I got to get a closer understanding of his success. I would tell Chris, “For my grad school assignment, I am supposed to interview the city manager about leadership.” (The assignment would actually be about accounting principles, but it didn’t matter.) With Chris’s permission, I’d schedule an appointment and slide into Greg’s office for my fifteen-minute appointment. Ninety minutes later, I’d emerge inspired, energized, and with a little more insight about the challenges of the chief executive.

Greg, an unwavering city manager, saw a future beyond the fire department for me. Saying “no” to his offer wasn’t an option.

When a person has been in the same job and starts to plateau, that person ultimately reaches a decision point: stay comfortable with boredom, seek an internal promotion, or pursue a better position at a different organization. The itch for upward mobility can be stronger than the practicality of what that upward mobility looks and feels like. Promotions are exciting, and new managers are usually thrilled when that offer comes, but leadership books don’t talk about the paradigm shift promotions represent. When the Champagne corks have popped and the celebration for the promotion is over, the next feeling is often total overwhelm, anxiety, and a sense of self-doubt and impending failure. From one day to the next, in the transition from the old position to the new one, an identity crisis happens. When I moved from the fire department to the police department, I was no longer the expert to whom people came for answers; I was the new kid on the block, with little credit for past performance.

Most humans have deep-seated insecurities about who they are. Because of our innate need and desire to fit in with a crowd and seek external validation, we look up to leaders and feel valued when colleagues depend on us. Change and new environments bring those insecurities to the surface. When Greg told me that I was ready for a supervisory opportunity, my initial response was, “Are you sure?”

Reaping The Fortunes

Many new managers question their worthiness when it comes to being ready for a promotion. Likewise, leaders who are asked to tackle a difficult situation, such as revamping a department or firing an employee that isn’t performing, may want to shirk their responsibilities because they don’t believe they’re up to the task. An estimated seventy percent of people will experience at least one episode of impostor syndrome in their lives.

When they assume that role, all of their deep-seated fears and anxieties materialize immediately, because their surroundings are different. The new position becomes a quest to create a sense of familiarity and grounding in order to move forward successfully within the new challenge.

By incorporating a series of strategies and techniques at the right time, however, leaders can reap all of the fortunes that Brutus predicted as he led his men into the final battles of war. By taking the leap, despite paralyzing anxiety, leaders can experience great growth and fortune, which is exactly what happened to me in the Ontario Police Department and all subsequent career opportunities that followed. If I consider where I began, I realize my fortune and growth is even greater than I, or anyone else, ever imagined, and is a direct result of those who believed in me despite my limitations.

Brain School

I suffered a myriad of injuries, including a traumatic brain injury at eighteen, followed by almost three years of full-time physical and cognitive rehabilitation, and years more of ongoing treatment. At the sixth month mark, when I desperately wanted to return to the University of California, Berkeley where I had been a student, doctors told me I should think about trade school. Instead, after years of relearning how to learn, I applied the strategies I learned in brain school to obtain bachelor’s and master’s degrees and went on to apply the brain school lessons in everyday life, including the workplace.

This book is about navigating change in the workplace. I will show you how these brain school strategies can help anyone stepping up to a new work challenge and how those lessons can help companies navigate change and build resilient teams ready for any crisis. One of the best examples of sudden change in the workplace is the first day on the job or the new promotion. I’ll make many references to that as a great example, although this book will help you and your team face any change, regardless of whether you are new to your position or a tenured pro.

The overwhelming chaos and confusion I felt after my brain injury is not so different from the apprehension and trepidation I felt on the first day of a new job. I use strategies from brain school to lead teams in my organization, and I share these strategies when I speak to companies throughout the country about change management.

New managers and long-time leaders alike can use these strategies to manage change in their organizations. The steps I present are:

• Gain self-awareness: knowing oneself is key to leading others. I recommend the AEM-Cube tool to learn about your own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of team members.
• Get to know those around you: I share specific questions managers can ask their boss, their peers, and everyone on the team to begin building or improving relationships.
• Identify gaps: brain school taught me the importance of assessing a problem before trying to solve it. I share my method for separating problems from emergencies and ways to identify the true issue at hand.
• Build compensatory techniques: as the backbone of dealing with a brain injury, compensatory techniques are the secret sauce to solving problems. I walk through specific techniques I use for day-to-day tasks and the process for building compensatory techniques for any type of challenge.
• Create an authentic environment: authenticity happens when everyone is open about their own challenges. I discuss the ten specific benefits and outcomes an authentic environment enables.
• Lean on others: being responsible for change or entering a new position is stressful and can feel lonely. Learning to lean on others is a sign of strength, not weakness.

It’s not every day you hear words like “gaps” and “compensatory techniques” used in a business book. You might need to read more slowly and unpack the message to see how it applies to you. If you’re confused, welcome to the world of brain injuries. When you have a brain injury or a complex challenge at work, you might be disoriented so you have to uncover all the layers, look from different perspectives, and ask different people for feedback. If the answers were easy I wouldn’t have written a book about them.

I’ve been immersed in public service since age fourteen. In my darkest hour of recovery from my brain injury, I dreamed about one day being able to help others navigate catastrophic change and create some value out of my experiences. By revealing some of my most challenging moments, I hope readers see how I use what I learned, and more importantly, how they can use what I learned to face change in the workplace and create success. Whether they’re entering their first management role, or facing crisis in the workplace, the tools in this book allow leaders to figure out where to begin to address change, how to approach each day, and ultimately build resilient teams.

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To keep reading, pick up your copy of See Change Clearly: Leveraging Adversity to Sharpen Your Vision and Build Resilient Teams by Jacob Green.