By: Barbara Bowes
Date: July 18, 2009

As a human resource and management consultant, I often work with clients in a professional coaching relationship. In many cases, we talk about trying something new or doing something differently with their career. Still other conversations focus on making major changes to their organizational structure and/or to the personnel teams. But no matter what, each and every person will feel a sense of unease about their planning. Why is that?

The reason for this unease is that the results of change cannot necessarily be seen ahead of time, but rather can only be projected. This "not knowing for sure" factor causes people to experience an emotional reaction such as anxiety, guilt or uncertainty. People with less or no experience in their planned change can become quite anxious as they are forced to put their confidence in "hoping" for good results. On the other hand, people with more experience in making their changes will have more confidence in their plans and may feel somewhat more comfortable.

So, why is doing something different, making personal or organizational changes so emotional? That's because change of any kind requires you to make choices. These choices take you out of your comfort zone, which in turn creates personal risk and when you feel at risk, you feel vulnerable and exposed to danger. This sense of danger could include such elements as the risk of failure, of being wrong, losing someone's approval and/or creating some sort of competition between yourself and others.

Yet, when I take time to point out to clients they have taken risks throughout their life, they are shocked and genuinely surprised. Not for a moment had they given any consideration for those early childhood risks such as learning to ride a bike without training wheels, learning to swim, or reaching out to meet new people at a summer festival. Nor had they considered the risks in their later life such as dating and marriage, having children or buying that first home. They also totally forgot about their professional risks such as choosing a career, applying for a new job, moving to another community to start a new job and/or accepting a promotion to a higher level at their workplace.

Once the risks of life experience have been recognized, it is pleasing for any professional coach to hear people say, "Wow, I never thought of myself as a risk taker!" and to see them quickly gain increased confidence in making the choices ahead of them.

Making choices, changing and taking personal and professional risks are a part of everyday life. In fact, the biggest risk you will experience is not taking a personal risk at all. Failing to take a personal risk or, in other words, doing nothing will only lead to both career and personal stagnation which in turn could be the death knell to your job and your career.

So how can someone overcome the blocks or barriers that will typically be experienced in managing personal or professional change? What steps can be taken to manage the risks? The following guidelines will be of assistance to those undergoing the change and risk management process.

Become familiar with the change/learning cycle -- Taking a risk, making a change or choice is all about learning. At Stage 1 of learning something new, you won't know what you don't know. By Stage 2, you'll be finding out and learning what you don't know. At this stage, you are reaching outside your comfort zone and so may feel anxious. At Stage 3, you are starting to apply what you have learned and by Stage 4, the last stage, whatever you have learned is now automatic. The best example of this is to recall the difference between your first days of driving a car and how easy it is today -- in fact, you don't even think about it.

Practise intelligent risk-taking -- Taking a risk requires thinking, analysis and preparation. Plan to carefully examine the choices you wish to make. Analyze the benefits and the pitfalls of the potential choices. Could there be any unexpected consequences and how can this risk be removed? Examine your own personal motivators and values to determine how these fit with your choices. Identify your own personal blockers to change and do something to overcome them. Finally, determine if it is the right time to make your choices.

Be prepared to commit -- Making a personal or professional risk takes a commitment of time, energy and resources. Therefore, once you have completed your analysis, you need to develop a step by step plan of action to overcome any hurtles or risks and make your change. You might even take some time to envision the future and begin practising the behaviours required to make your vision come true.

Obtain strong ongoing support -- Making both personal career changes as well as organizational change reminds me of going on a diet or trying to quit smoking -- you need support or you will quickly revert to your old ways of doing things. Individual and personal support can be simply applying some self-managing tools such as a photo of a slimmer you on the fridge to keeping a daily journal.

From an organizational perspective, you will need to put a team in place that can create personal staff support at all different levels of the organization. After all, changing an organization means essentially changing individuals from the inside out. Therefore, your change team needs to be strong and consistent.

Choice, change and risk are natural and necessary processes within both our personal and professional lives. We reach out for self-improvement and career enhancement by trying new ways of doing things or taking on new tasks at work. We make the choice to commit ourselves to a cause, to a project, to a job and/or a relationship. We make choices to build and grow our business or to downsize and restructure. Yet, some people continue to struggle with risk taking because they let their feelings of fear get the best of them.

Keep in mind your past successes, apply a more systematic approach to change, choice and risk, and I am confident that you will find your emotional reaction will move from fear to one that creates feelings of excitement and accomplishment.

Source: Risk-Taking for personal Growth, Joseph Hardo, New Harbinger publications, 2000

Barbara J. Bowes, is president of Legacy Bowes Group a leading HR and executive search firm. She is also author of three books and host of the weekly BowesKnows radio show. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it