I like change, except...

I like change. I like the excitement and energy of something new. I like the experience of interactions with new people, places and things. I'm invigorated by change and actively seek opportunities for change in my daily life. I live my life in search of opportunities for change. Yes, you could say I love change, except when it's forced upon me. I was forced to change a while ago, and my experiences gave me a few new insights on managing change.

I have a hereditary hearing loss that has caused me to loose the frequencies that make up the normal speaking range for most people. At home, it isn't much of a problem except when watching TV--I hear the music find (higher frequencies), but have a hard time with the dialog (lower frequencies). Yet, this is hell in a business environment, especially in a large room where the voices got lost to the room. One-on-One, I'm fine, it's the larger groups that make my life difficult.

With strong encouragement from my Dad, who also has this hearing loss, I invested in a pair of 4-channel digital hearing aids. These are different from most hearing aids you see on the the market which use analog circuitry. The analog hearing aid amplifies all of the sound, not just the sounds the wearer has trouble hearing.

I tried these, then state-of-the-art hearing aids, for about 30 days and I was greatly disappointed. Yes, I could here things that I couldn't hear before. Unfortunately, that extended beyond the dialog I had been missing. I could hear everything more clearly, including conversations across the room that made me feel like I was eavesdropping. I was suddenly overwhelmed with sounds, most of which I classified as "noise" and I had a hard time distinguishing between what I needed to hear and what I was hearing. I hated it. At the end of 30-days, I was ready to give it up.

Then I talked with my doctor, who told me that Siemens had just released a new, 16-channel, digital hearing aid that would allow for a more finite programming of the hearing aid across the channels to better fit my loss. He also told me (again, actually for about the 4th time), that hearing aids won't replace my natural hearing and that I would have to learn to "hear" all over again (i.e., learn what to tune out).

It occurred to me at that point, that I wasn't fighting hearing aids, I was fighting change. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was being forced to change and adapt to a new situation. I laughed at the irony. Here I am, a guy who thrives on change and helping others change business models and processes, a guy who understands that 95% of change is about people and I'm fighting change.

It's been about 2 years since I started wearing hearing aids. I still don't wear them much around the house unless I'm watching TV or we have visitors (most of my family speaks on frequencies I can hear without amplification). However, in my work and social situations, the change has been overwhelming positive for me. Part of it was increasing the number of programmable channels, although I suspect the biggest thing was retraining my ears to listen.

Perhaps most important to me in this experience, was learning, first-hand, that people have to want to change and buy-into the benefits the change will bring. Change can't be forced upon them. Human beings like to have some sense of control and often change processes, in business particularly, are about mandating change. This almost never works, and now thanks to a little problem with my hearing, I understand why.

I have more to say on the topic of change in my next post.

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