Even the least business minded individual has heard about Change Management. Once the preserve of the Harvard Business Review and McKinsey, Change Management has permeated our business vocabulary to such an extent that the words now leach into our every day life as we “manage change”. “The only constant is change” is a truism so should we now change, Change Management?

As a first step, let’s take off the capitals that give it an unwelcome status and look at the origins of change management. First considered in the late 1800s (the middle of the industrial revolution remember) business was seen as a mechanism, a set of processes that could be managed and changed to operate more efficiently by the engineer. It wasn’t until the late 1980s when psychologists started to evaluate the people aspect in business that change management really took off.

What was a natural human evolutionary process that allowed us to adapt to our circumstances became an academic study worthy of PhDs. Models were described in loving detail in order to put a rigid scaffold around our “new” understandings. Thus a description of a mechanical process was translated for a non-mechanical environment. And consider the language of those models: Force Field Analysis, Drivers of Change, Total Quality Management and the futuristic sounding 6-Sigma. Is that the language of aggression, harshness, supremacy, of technology itself? The very phrase “change management” has become Pavlovian and can generate feelings of hopelessness, resignation or despair.

It is time this was reframed and we regained control over what has become an all powerful threat to our equilibrium. Let’s start talking about adaptable working. Use a language that humanises what is a human condition. At the basic level we are constantly adapting to our physical and emotional environment in order to remain safe and healthy. This is brought into sharp focus when we face a crisis; we then need to take what is unconscious into our consciousness. We all have the skills within us to cope and adjust, so use a language that empowers those skills: adaptability, resourcefulness, imagination, ingenuity, versatility. Even the most recalcitrant friend or employee will respond to a language that taps into their inner strength. Adaptable working unconsciously reflects what we do day by day. It demonstrates possibility and allows us to tap into our inner resources in a way that recognises our humanity.

Adaptable working should be the new movement. It gives a lightness and freedom that allows the individual to recognise their inner ability to cope with changes that surround them. It gives them opportunity instead of despair, control instead of hopelessness and a resilience that will support any change that comes their way.