“Fear of the unknown and mistrust can prompt resistance to change”
Response: The thought-provoking statement provided for this discussion, “fear of the unknown and mistrust can prompt resistance to change,” is absolutely true. I have been in the U.S. Army for 13 years and have seen my fair share of changes and how an organization’s climate can influence the level of resistance to adjustments. Both fear of the unknown and mistrust are natural feelings that we all possess, but to what degree and why is it easier managed sometimes yet challenging at other times? An organization’s climate has much influence on how comfortable we are with changes being implemented.

I can remember some years back, being part of a unit with an amazing leadership staff. Our commander at the time, insisted on training hard but kept us informed of every objective the training would meet if we gave it our all. In 2011, our brigade started to experience changes that stemmed from budget cuts taking place. This took a tremendous toll on how efficient and effective we were able to be as a unit yet, we overcame these obstacles having a high-level of morale. Although I wasn’t apart of the upper-management team that decided how we would adjust training operations with new constraints, as a squad leader it was important for me to keep my team focused on the training – calming the natural thoughts of uncertainty when changes occur. The existing climate made my task as a leader and the burden of uncertainty lighter during this transformation. From the top-down the foundation was set using the following principles that gave us the confidence we needed to move forward and remain a successful organization: * clearly communicated the vision and goals of the unit – the unit was always informed of what was going on and the possibilities of its affect on us as a unit and individuals(families). *