barrier to change

Have you ever wonder why it is so difficult to make changes in yourself. I am sure that there are instances, you encounter problems in work working life or in your family life due to your attitudes or the way you think.

Why is it so difficult to change, even you have tried it. Understanding the mechanism behind it can make changes more easier and permanent. This is because, all of us has a mechanism of self defense. This mechanism is unconsciously within us, like have a virtual internal lawyer and advisor within us, hidden from our conscious self, working unknown to us. His job is to protect is against any external attack. The psychologists call it 'ego defense mechanisms'.

Some people may relate the mechanism to our inborn instinct to defense ourself against any physical attack, such as the attack by a wild animals. The mechanism work automatically without the need to think through and give instantaneous respond either to fight or flight.

If we are aware of the barrier, it will make ourself more in control will help us to overcome it. There are the main basic defend mechanisms people use, the denial, rationalisation and intellectualization. The details are given below:

1. Denial - this is a way of saying that the problem does not exist, or even it exists, it not caused by you or your are not involved. Most of the time the person will not realize this as he himself is convinced that he is right. The only way for a person to come to the reality is by a wake up call, and in most cases it is rather to late.

I can see this happenings are rampant among the politicians, as they seem to point the problems to the other side. They are not lying but, I think they truly believe the others are the cause of the problems. This is the mammoth form of self denial.

2. Rationalisation - This is another form where a person manage to create a very logical and believable argument why a certain negative outcome happened. It help to cover certain weakness or poor performance on his part.

For example: A person may has missed the promotion opportunity. He may rationalize that the system is bias or a form of favoritism had taken place. This method can be used even by politician to justify why he was not selected.

However, it may be very hard to separate the grains, as favoritism and unfair practices are actually happening both in organizations and in politics.

3. Intellectualization - This is the case when you remove yourself from the argument but defend an ineffective or faulty action to satisfy the needs for certainty and control. The result of this will be, the system remain status quo, there is no need to change your way of doing things and actually maintaining the same results.

There various tools that can be used to incur changes. The way it works are the following 3 steps:

step 1: Impose the change of results - for example if last year the sale was 10 millions, then this year make it 12 millions.

step 2. Implement process changes -

step 3. monitor the change to the personnels involved.

Most of the current change managements are focusing the results and processes without directly monitoring the individual performance.

The ability to overcome barriers to changes will help to improve the individual as a person and as an employee. By developing individuals, we will be helping to provide better performance and results.