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Hi everyone, here is Ricardo Vargas. Welcome to the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today, I like to talk about change, fatigue, and why this is so important. It's because if we go back and listen to other episodes of this podcast, I talk all the time about change. Change. We need to be ready for change, change, change. We need to be adaptable. Adaptability. Probably out of ten episodes, I talk about this in 8 or 9 of them. So what happens? It's people who get so tired of change. And what is the concept of change and fatigue? It's when the team you are managing and even yourself can clearly see apathy, resignation, and frustration in the team. And it's very, very clear to see that. And when, for example, you create so many changes and you try to change everything at the same time, or when you just implemented a change and you change it again. So let's suppose you just replace the project manager that by the way, it's very bad. But let's suppose you had to do that. You change the project manager, and then one week later, you change it again. So this creates a stressful environment where people feel very insecure. And naturally, this drives a reduction in productivity. An increase of resistance, people start to say, no, I'm tired of change. And people say, why this change? Why one more time changing? Another thing that I spoke about was the great resignation during the COVID-19 times, higher turnover, and higher absenteeism. People start missing their jobs; people start getting sick. And I'm not saying faking sickness, I'm talking a real sickness. So people start to become sick, and they start to become so tired of going to work because of this change. And they feel so insecure that it really impacts project performance. And this is combined with a low morale, frustration, anger, all of that. So then the question you may ask to me is, okay, how do I manage that? How do I manage this environment? Because changes becoming so often, so frequent that these effects are becoming, I would say, almost a natural part of our life. So, let me give you three quick tips every time you are in the middle of this kind of avalanche of change. First one open and transparent communication. Openness. Sit with the team. Explain the rationale. Explain that it's important for people to understand that. Explain, explain, and explain. Listen to their feedback, listen to their concerns. It's not just dumping on top of people the amount of change and thinking that everybody is a machine. People are not machines, and you need to be empathetic. And this is my second tip. You need to be empathetic to create a supportive culture. Remember you you. So far you were not working with an AI. You are not working with robots; you are working with people. People have feelings. People have their fears. So you need to create a way to say, look, it's not easy, it's hard, it's challenging, but you can count on us to move forward. If you don't do that, there is a very high probability that people will look for a job elsewhere. And this is happening all the time. This is happening. People are staying less and less in a specific company. People are just shifting jobs in the search for something that fosters more happiness and more, I would say, less frustration on people. Also, you can drive empathy by recognizing the situation and telling people honestly. I know people are not expecting one more change, but we just need to work together. Let's be together working towards that and recognize every single step of the work. When you are in a challenging situation, every step. Your move forward is a great, great step, and you truly need to be prepared for that. And last but not least, prioritize and why I'm saying prioritize because it's impossible for people to keep their mind clean and and sharp. When you have so many priorities at the same time. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So you need even with an avalanche of change, you need to give your team the sense of what is the priority for, for example, for the next sprint, you need to see to tell them what is the priority for the next month. It's critical for them to have this direction, and it's critical for you because if you manage the team and you have a more stable team, it's super important for you to because it will drive a little bit of peace of mind on you and at the end will help you and your organization to deliver better results. Remember one thing about this chaotic environment we are living in now: those who have the mental stability to go over, change, and manage their fatigue will be the winners of tomorrow. And I'm talking about project managers, team members, and organizations. So get ready for that and start doing this today. Open and transparent communication, prioritization, and empathy with these key aspects. You can drive your projects in these turbulent times in a less turbulent way. Think about that and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
