An announcement to my team was made last week which really shook us. In a nutshell, it was one of those ‘glass half empty/glass half full’ kinda announcements. As I looked around the table at my colleagues it was interesting to see how each of them processed the news, each one in such a unique and different way.

• The devastated one: Hurt. Gutted. Emotional. Deciding to rather keep quiet or else fear bursting into tears.
• The confused one: What do you mean? I’m still not sure what this means? WTH? Wait…I don’t get it.
• The delighted one: Yesss! Change is good! I cannot wait to sink my teeth into new projects!
• The surprised one: Never saw it coming. Didn’t really care either way. Such is life people.
• The fence-sitter: Keeps saying ‘I have my own opinions’ but won’t share.
• The summariser: So what you’re saying is that… *echo, echo*
• The quiet one: internalizing, listening, watching, waiting.

It was interesting for me to watch how each of them took the news and digested the information. I’ll be honest, I hate change. I really do. But what I’ve realised is that change is normal. In my working environment, it’s constant. You need to worry when things aren’t changing. But it’s the reaction to the changes that is always different and what makes or breaks the steps going forward.

A negative attitude slows down action. All you land up doing is re-hashing everything and going around in circles. A positive attitude is where people start talking about opportunities and the future. This was very apparent to me and the attitude I’ve decided to adopt.

I’m seeing this next phase as a chance for me to ‘re-invent’ myself (again) and I’m quite excited to see where 2013 takes me. If only I could bottle this feeling and pass it around the office.