Survival Step #5: Be Prepared For “Psychological Soreness.”

An excerpt from The Employee Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions

Survival Step #5: Be Prepared For “Psychological Soreness.” 

All people, at one time or another, resist change. This is especially so with changes that you fear, or changes that are not of your own making.

You might think of resistance as “psychological soreness,” and we can compare it to physical soreness.

For example, when you make significant changes in your physical routine, you often put new demands on some of your muscles. As a result, they feel stiff and sore the next day. Your body fights back, or resists the new demands. Your body, by sending a message of pain, discomfort, or stiffness, tells you to please quit changing your old habits and go back to your comfortable routine.

But that means giving up on growing. Unless you stretch your physical muscles, and make them work at new and more demanding levels, you don’t gain any strength. In fact, you begin to lose strength. The muscles deteriorate and grow weaker.

To put it in everyday language, you have to “use it or lose it.”

Well, mergers almost always bring about changes in your work routine. This means that new demands will be placed on your mental or psychological muscles— you may have to break some old habits and do your work differently.

It’s very common for people to be uneasy about some of these changes in the job. You won’t always get to have a say in these changes. And sooner or later, you’re probably going to feel uncomfortable with a few of these new routines, or these new demands.

Your actual muscles don’t get sore or stiff, but your attitudes and emotions will. This is the psychological soreness, or resistance, you need to prepare for. Something inside you will want the changes to go away.

Of course, people resist in many different ways.

Some employees argue logically and unemotionally why the changes are bad, or why they won’t work. Other employees get frustrated and very temperamental. You may see some people get angry, disgusted, or frightened to the extent that they quit. This is one way of resisting the changes.

There is usually a lot of very visible, overt resistance, plus some rather passive or covert resistance. The passive resistance may come out as uncooperative behavior— complaining, goofing off, foot dragging, withdrawal, and other poor work habits. It may even be more subtle than that, and hidden from the casual observer. But the sharp eye can find passive resistance to the merger—like in the helpless feelings that are used as an excuse by some people, and in the political maneuvering of certain employees.

It’s extremely important for you to realize that you can’t stop most of the changes the merger will bring about. You may put up a heck of a fight, in open combat or through guerrilla warfare. But even if you win a few of the battles, you will probably lose the war. 

It’s probably better for you to think of your psychological soreness as a signal that your mental, attitudinal, or psychological muscles are being stretched. This means that the merger is giving you an opportunity to grow, to become stronger and more emotionally resilient. You also need to remember that when you change your physical routines and your muscles ache, they don’t stay sore. In the same way, psychological soreness goes away, too. And when it does, you will have more psychological muscle. So get involved with the changes, instead of trying to fight city hall. Or to put it another way, “Don’t push the river.”

You can’t undo the merger. You can’t push things back the way they were. Even if you could do that, it would be a major mistake.

It’s very common to see some employees, at different levels in the company, who just keep on resisting the changes. They just can’t seem to quit fighting the merger. But they don’t leave the company.

Think of it this way—if you didn’t leave, you decided to stay.

So continuing to resist the changes, or continuing to criticize the merger, is probably just going to be a drain on your energy, make life more frustrating and unhappy, and maybe damage your career.

If enough employees resist the changes, the merger can become unbelievably complicated. That means your job will probably become more difficult and more stressful. And management has less of a chance of running things smoothly.

So if you can’t accept the changes, and help the merger process along, perhaps you should leave. Psychologically that might be the healthiest step for you to take.

If you’re going to stay, bloom where you are planted. Instead of clinging to the way things were, be innovative and flexible. Adapt.

The people who will be the most admired, respected, and effective will be the ones who work through their “psychological soreness” to become effective change agents.

They will be all-stars and the “MVP’s.”