Every so often, Facebook comes out with an enhancement or a different way of presenting things to its subscribers. Inevitably when this happens there is an outcry, people begin posting incitements to "hate Facebook" and there is a huge surge of online negative emotion. The purpose of this post is not to agree or disagree with the changes to Facebook, but rather to examine the inherent aversion that humankind has to any kind of change.

In business, leaders are often asked to be "change agents" and that has been a buzzword for a while and something that many of us put on our resumes. In truth, change of any kind is initially uncomfortable and many of us try to avoid it. The pitfalls with this approach are that familiarity breeds contempt. After a while, when things are so routine, so unchanging, progress ceases to be made and in effect we start to regress - move backwards. More than ever, in the ever changing world in which we live and work, if we fail to be nimble in our apprach to change, we will be left behind watching our competitors roar ahead of us in a cloud of dust.

Change is necessary. Change is actually essential. But change is not comfortable. The answer to getting better at navigating change, is practice.  Like any skill, change requires that we practice it, and practice it often. In that way, we will slowly become more comfortable with the uncomfortableness of change and rather than run from it, moan about it, complain about it, we will begin to embrace the positive effects that change can bring.

Are the recent changes to Facebook a step backwards or forwards? I really don't know. But I am pretty sure that within a few weeks the naysayers and complainers will have begun to accept the new look and very soon will have forgotten the previous iteration altogether. 

As business leaders, or change agents, our responsibility is to support our teams through the uncomfortableness of change, not to isolate them from it. We must encourage doing things just a little differently every day, to break habits, open the mind and explore the positive benefits of change. In many of my training sessions, I encourage the participants at the end of the day to drive home by a different route, and pay attention to how it feels. Or if they usually enter the house by the side door, to go in through the front. 

Practicing change is easy. The more comfortable we get with that feeling of initial discomfort, the greater the ultimate benefits. 

Attended a wonderful session this morning at Right Management in Milwaukee with a presentation by co-founder of Meet Meme, Andy Wright. It is truly inspiring to hear from young entrepreneurs about how they are leveraging the extraordinary technological developments that have swept the world in the last (very) few years, and Andy presented in an engaging and very interesting way.

I have had my own Meet Meme trading cards for a little over a week now and they certainly set you apart from others when you bring them out. The ability to scan the QR code with a smart phone and then link to my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts is amazing and I feel very hip knowing that I have them, even though they felt a bit strange at first. 

I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of most online technology. I got a Facebook page a couple of years ago, mainly because I found that people were telling me what my kids were doing before I knew, and they had all learned about it on FB. I have had a LinkedIn profile for a while but it is only in the last month that I have really begun to make the best of it - and what a great tool it is proving to be!

Twitter, however, has seemed like a different language and I didn't really see the point of it until I attended one of Right Management's excellent tutorials last week. Since then, I feel that i have almost "got it". There is so much information that it can be overwhelming, but I have connected with some very interesting people and it is fascinating. I can now absolutely see its value in a job search and just for keeping up to date with industry trends, not to mention news, literally as it happens.

So if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do so by clicking on the button on my homepage.  Tweet, tweet!