Manila Diaries
Experimenting with Novelty
11 March 2013: 31 degrees C / 87 degrees F, Cloudy, Humidity
66%
It has been about 2 months now
since I decided to start a personal experiment.
It was pre-empted by being asked to include a session on leading change
within a management development program.
So I thought it would be useful to remind myself what it is like when
being asked to change something. I
decided to change the habit of a life-time by starting to wear my watch on the
opposite hand to my usual hand for more years than I care to remember!
Ever since I began wearing a
watch as a child I have always worn it on my left-hand. I seem to think the reason for this was I am
right-handed and I was told that it would ‘get in the way’ when I was resting
my hand on a table and writing with a pen or pencil. Now in the days of rarely using a writing
instrument and using a keyboard to write it probably doesn’t matter which hand
a person wears their watch (but that’s probably a blog for another day).
The novelty of wearing my watch
on my right hand has been interesting.
At first, I was particularly conscious of both the weight and feel of my
watch on my right hand. Each time I
wanted to check the time, I automatically looked at my left hand; although I
must admit that those incidents are becoming less and less. At the start of the experiment when I looked
at my new watch-wearing hand, my hand did not look familiar to me even though
my watch is familiar to me. After a few
days I decided to wear a bracelet to counterbalance the fact that something was
missing from my left-hand. That didn’t
seem to have any effect; I was still aware that something was missing from my
left-hand.
So what are my reflections on
this experiment so far in relation to novelty and change?
1.
Motivation
to change is a strong factor in continuing with the novelty that change brings
about for a person. Managers can help
people to embed the newness of change by helping people to identify what
personal benefits they will achieve from the new situation.
2.
Looking for
something that is still familiar about the new situation that was present in
the old situation can be helpful in the early stages of implementing
change. However, whilst avoiding the cliché:
Familiarity breeds contempt, it is
important that people do not then just try to re-create the old situation and
ignore the change around them. This might
be a useful strategy though with people who are particularly resistant to the
change.
3.
The
counterbalance effect is interesting. Just like seeking something familiar in
the new situation can be comforting, it might be more helpful to get people to
identify what they see as the gains and losses of the change and then have open
discussions that will help people to minimise the losses and maximize the
gains.
I have refrained from returning
to my old ways and just wear the watch on my ‘usual hand’ and will persevere
and continue to wear the watch on my new hand until it becomes second-nature so
that I am not sensitive to the weight or feel of my watch and the change is now
the ‘old situation’.
