Leading, Managing and Coping with Change in 2025
The word of the year so far is “change.” Everywhere I go, every meeting I attend and every conversation I’ve had with my clients recently has been focused on leading, managing and coping with change in 2025.
Whether at the macro or micro level, clients and colleagues are wresting with leading through change, responding to change and staying sane through it all.
Macro Level Changes
For those of us living in the United States, we have just witnessed a change in administration, followed by a flurry of executive orders that will lead to policy changes. Many of my clients are in industries that are greatly impacted by these.
So there’s significant change happening for leaders and their team members at that macro level.
Micro Level Change
At the same time, changes are happening at a more micro level inside organizations.
I’ve spent a great deal of my career at a company called Air Products. Today, for example, they are taking a shareholder vote about a potential major change in their leadership.
An Exercise: To Help You and Your Team Better Manage Change
Coping with change in 2025 is going to be essential to survive and thrive. I don’t envision things slowing down anytime soon.
And so I have an exercise I want to share to help you. I’ve used it with many of my clients, and it has been resonating.
This is something you can do with your teams and/or just yourself.
Why do this exercise?
- It will help to settle your team.
- It will help to direct their energy.
- It will help decrease worry in areas where it doesn’t need to go.
1) COLUMN 1: What’s changing?
So picture a whiteboard, a flip chart or a spreadsheet – whatever works better for you and your thought process when you are putting things in columns.
In the first column, write down what’s changing and what the impact is for your team (or you, if you’re doing this on your own).
2) COLUMN 2: What’s staying the same?
In the second column, write down what’s staying the same.
This is what will not change as a result of the macro and micro changes, and that we should continue to do.
3) COLUMN 3: What don’t we know yet?
In the last column, write down what we don’t know yet … changes that are up in the air that you are concerned about. Add a projected date of when you expect to know more.
You’re going to have a lot of inventory in this last column, especially in the early days of a new administration.
Continue to Use Your Change Management Table Each Time You Meet
Use this whole output, all three columns, each time you get together with your team.
Talk about the first column.
- Are there more things that are changing that we didn’t record the last time?
- Are there more implications that we didn’t know about or new developments?
Write them down and update existing entries as needed.
Address the second column.
- Is there anything you can now move there?
- Are there more things that are staying the same that weren’t already recorded?
Update the third column.
- Clarify with any new insights since you’ve met as a team (what decisions have been made? what policies have changed)?)
- Pull the result, where applicable, into either column 1 or 2
This may sound daunting at first, but it’s a simple activity that doesn’t take a lot of time. The juice is worth the squeeze, I promise you!
Coping with change in 2025 by doing this exercise will help keep your team on the same page, and it will aid you in allocating and prioritizing your energy. As a leader, it will help you demonstrate your leadership in a time of change when your people need you most.
