14 Dec Change, looking towards the future

From early on, as children we accept change as a way of life; we exchange games, cards, we change to a new class, we get new teachers… In this early stage change is viewed as an injection of adrenaline that encourages us to continue to grow and change as persons, without being afraid of the unknown.

When we are children we are characterized by spontaneity, good humor, bursts of laughter. As we become adults, at times we mistake becoming older for boredom, losing spontaneity and good humor.

And when we end up in the working world, many times we settle into a mediocre dynamic, which is sometimes called our comfort zone.

What do we mean by comfort zone?

According to Diego Vicente, professor of organizational behavior at IE Business School, on an organizational level the comfort zone can be considered to be the set of skills and competencies that a person handles with ease, and which give him or her good results without running risks. Working within this comfort zone guarantees us to feel safe, but not necessarily happy.

When we have been working for a long time in the same company we tend to get the feeling that we are delighted with what we do and how we do it. However, the comfort that being in a safe, comfortable and familiar place provides us also acts as a type of mattress that lets some of us stay asleep.

This comfort is a double-edged sword, since although it allows us to dominate the situation it also acts against us because we are not evaluating the benefits of leaving, such as gaining self-confidence, facing new challenges, abandoning monotony and living new experiences that can enrich us.

For some people, leaving this comfort zone means insecurity when faced with change.

In Rieusset we have been immersed in a process of change for the past 4 years. We have changed our Management, some members of the Management Team, the methodology and our work system …

It is our job to make it possible for the people who work at Rieusset to have a positive attitude and that these changes -far from causing us insecurity- bring us motivation, by which we mean “having motives”; in this way we try to get people to have “motives” in order to achieve the objectives set by the different departments.

We recommend leaving the comfort zone with an invitation to motivate us toward change and which will allow us to improve our own professional situation and thus the situation of our Company.

Ultimately, what we are after is to convey that the best way to change could be by staying but expanding our comfort zone, cultivating versatility to increase our capacity for serving our company.

For us, one of the key formulas for giving value to our daily endeavors is to work with confidence, with intelligence, with creativity, with motivation, with our colleagues and always striving for success.