Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills

25 Change

The Premise and Change

One of the most challenging aspects of managing people is helping them through change—in their job, throughout an organization, or just with a project. By understanding how people reach conclusions, we can explain why people are uncomfortable with change and suggest ways to help people through change.

In order to explain the thinking that takes place during change, we have to look at the premise that forms our conclusions. Remember the premise components and how they work: facts, observations, and experiences are combined to form assumptions, which are filtered by beliefs, until you come to a conclusion. The stronger the premise, the more confident you can be in the conclusion; the weaker the premise, the less confidence you'll have. In the context of change, the conclusion is what to do—the actions that you or someone else should take. If you don't have confidence in this, you'll be uneasy about taking those actions.

As you'll see in the examples that follow, you often lack experience when change occurs—experience in that new venture, process, or manager. When your experience diminishes, your premise weakens—and as we have seen, a weaker premise means less confidence in the conclusion. You're not sure about what to do or say or how to act. As a result, you feel uncomfortable with the change.

By way of example, let's say there is an organizational change taking place. You have a new manager, and your responsibilities are changing somewhat. What ...