Ellen's blog: Change and the difficulty of managing uncertainty

Today I cried at work. It’s been a very challenging week, with a huge amount of change in the organisation, and against a back-drop of hopeless uncertainty, and with everyone in a bad mood, the straw that broke the camel’s back came this morning, in the form of what I felt was a bit of a pasting during a meeting. I managed to maintain my composure in the room, and remain dry-eyed, but when approached afterwards by a colleague who wanted to reassure me that I shouldn’t take it personally, suddenly the floodgates opened and my eyes welled up. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and great sobs followed, in the middle of a trading floor (think EXTREME open plan)! It seemed to be the fact that someone showed some compassion that actually tipped me over the edge.

When an entire organisation is going through change, we seem to experience the “it’s the same for everyone” syndrome; a lack of understanding towards people having difficulty, because “we’re all under the same pressure.” But it’s not a competition! There’s no prize at the end for being under the most pressure, apart from perhaps being metaphorically squashed!

The organisational environment can very quickly become toxic when faced with change and uncertainty. Where there is change, there is uncertainty, and where there is uncertainty, it is human nature that people become worried that the worst will happen - unless we’ve been told our jobs are safe, we start to believe they aren’t. We start to invent explanations for things we don’t understand, and lose focus on achieving objectives, because our attention is diverted to ruminating on the potential hidden  meanings of the events, situations and conversations around us. Why was that meeting cancelled?? Is my project no longer important - will I still be around in the new organisation? Have they secretly found someone else who could do my job better than me and are slowly phasing me out, starting today with my cancelled meeting???

Someone recently told me that stress is a relatively simple concept - human beings feel stressed when they have to behave in a way that is not consistent with the way they feel. For example, if the whole world thinks I’m competent and professional but inside I feel like an imposter - that causes stress. I am upset with the way someone has treated me, but I have to be courteous and professional towards them - that’s stressful. This afternoon I was angry and disappointed, but I had to go to a training session - as the presenter, so there was no question of hiding at the back and sulking. Those two hours were very stressful, and accompanied by an uncharacteristic nagging feeling that someone would ask a question I couldn’t answer; I literally had a sense of impending doom. Actually people asked some good questions and nothing I couldn’t give an opinion on, so there was no need to worry (as is the case in most worrying situations).

Today I decided to carry on regardless, and hide the puffy-eyes in plain sight but if anyone asks tomorrow, I’ll come clean and say that things got on top of me, which has underlined the importance of having a supportive and collegiate team around me. Now is the time to help each other, not pretend its OK and worry about appearing weak. The people who distinguish themselves now will be those who coped with the pressure by resisting the urge to fear the worst, and staying focussed on what’s important; delivering on our work agenda, whilst looking out for each other.

Ellen has two boys aged 5 and 3 who are both at school (although the youngest is in the school’s nursery). She recently joined a brokerage firm in the City following a 6-month career break which marked the end of her involvement with the banking world, after 15 years. She has an au pair to help out at home