Seek Surprise
The unexpected and the unpredictable. Seeking surprises, can warm up our brains to be more resilient to change.
Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
For many of us, change can feel uncomfortable. I wrote earlier this month on the discomfort of change, that we can build up our ability to ‘meet and move through’ change if we embrace the discomfort. But that is not easy.
I learned that in January 2007. I had just signed a permanent employment contract with a multi-national organisation I had been contracting for. They were about to go through a re-organisation, but I thought, ‘I literally just got my contract, I will be fine!’
Surprise! Three weeks into my contract I was sat in a room being told that my role was to be made redundant. I have never felt so utterly shocked!
Since that moment I saw my role in communication of organisation change as a responsibility to eliminate unpleasant surprises for employees.
Why is change harder when it is a surprise?
Our brains are so busy with the business of running our bodies, working out the social world, doing our work and getting on with our lives that it is no wonder that the brain is always looking for a short cut. It is more efficient to see patterns, create assumptions and habits to take the strain and cognitive energy out of everyday life.
I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts “Unlocking us” by Dr Brene Brown, where she talked to Neuroscientist, Dr David Eagleman about his book Livewired - The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain. Dr Eagleman talked about how our brains are changing, always moulding and creating new connections, especially when we are doing something new. But when we get used to something and good at something like driving it is more efficient for that to become an automatic process so we don’t need to use our conscious energy on it.
To operate efficiently you need to be able to predict and see patterns and create a mental models so that you are not surprised. But these short-cuts are also at the root of why different can be hard.
“If you challenge yourself, if you are constantly facing new tasks and challenges that you are no good at, you are building new roadways and bridges.”- Dr Eagleman.
Our brains can re-wire and change when we do something that we are not already good at.
So instead of eliminating surprise, we need to seek out experiences that don’t have a predictable outcome, those that challenge our current wiring and build new circuitry.
The brain actually loves surprise. Not hurtful surprise that causes fear and anger but positive surprises are rewarding. A magician aims for that moment of surprise. The magician is relying on the fact that the brain will be busy trying to predict and look for patters, so we are taken back when we are totally surprised by the card that is drawn or the disappearance of the watch.
When children play there is so much surprise, peek-a-boo, hide and seek, jack in the box. They play these games when they are learning so much about the world.
Jokes are often funny when there is an unexpected punchline. The surprise makes us laugh.
There is a balance to be found.
These is an ‘optimal anxiety’. There are benefits to the moments when you are not really in your comfort-zone but you are not stressed either.
We perform better, learn and experienced more and open our perspectives more when we break out of that comfort-zone. Living outside your comfort-zone by choice not only help you to avoid boredom and rumination that leads to being blandly dis-satisfied, but it helps you to have an easier time when there is unexpected change.
“Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined. Comfort kills!”
Back to 2007, after I left that room, I sat at my desk, tried to work but I couldn’t concentrate. I had a meeting later that week with the senior leader who had made the decision, so I was making a list of questions for him, mostly they started with, “Why…”.
I left the office and went home early. By instinct I searched out answers, strengths or knowledge in books. I picked up a book that I was given and was described as ‘An essential for resilience to change’
- Who moved my cheese - by Spencer Johnson.
It is such a short read that later that evening I finished the book, closed it and I felt like I had opened my eyes for the first time.
I ripped up my ‘Why list’ which was really a ‘whine list’, and I wrote a list of things that I would be doing to help management to make my role redundant. I was fuelled by the lessons from the book. You can see these in the image on the right.
I posted this on the wall next to my desk as a reminder to ‘Enjoy change’. It turned out that I stayed in the company for 12 more years and rode the waves of every re-organisation with much more resilience.
