imapMyTeam Blog

Change itself doesn’t cause stress…what stresses me is HOW the change affects ME

You may not be able to control the changes coming your way, but you can learn to respond in a way that minimizes the stress that threatens your productivity.

At the risk of oversimplification, how change personally impacts us is fairly predictable. When change is aligned with our own internal motivational needs we embrace it quickly and effortlessly. In these cases the change does not seem to be too ‘big’, ‘radical’ or threatening - we adjust to it fairly easily.

However when the change is not aligned with our motivational needs the change, no matter how ‘small’ or ‘simple’ will cause us to take immediate notice. That change has now fundamentally disrupted the conditions that contribute to our success and we may react adversely and be on the cusp of, if not fully engaged in, unproductive behaviors.

If the changes push us too far from our motivational need our poor reaction to the change may heighten to the point it will impede our ability to succeed. In other words we have exceeded the ‘optimum’ level of stress and rather than engaged and challenged we’re stressed!

In the pull down menu in the center section of www.imapmyteam.com® we’ve added a new report titled “ When Change Stresses You”. This report will help you understand how change that disrupts a basic motivational need may trigger a stress reaction from you. The report also includes a prescriptive tip that will help you neutralize that stress reaction.


Change in the workplace is unavoidable; through understanding and use of the When Change Stresses You report, change that disrupts your performance is.