Change Management.

Have you noticed more “For Lease” signs in your neighborhood? Small businesses I used to visit while walking my dog are closing their doors because customer shopping habits are evolving. It’s not breaking news: traditional brick and mortar stores are less appealing to an increasingly technology-savvy consumer base. The industry is changing…right?

Yes, but It’s a complex landscape. On one hand, The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the industry has grown by1.5 million jobs in 2010. In April of this year, there were more than 570,000 retail job openings in the United States. Yet, advances in technology are changing the way customers shop. The National Retail Federation (NRF) has observed online sales gaining ground against in-store purchases.

We’ve talked about the changing retail industry before. Our VP, Christian Hasenoehrl, described a change management plan to ready your business for the new retail landscape. He focused on tactics for leadership teams, not on stores, managers, cashiers, salespeople – how do they fit into a retail change management strategy?

An Industry Opportunity

Retailers have an opportunity to turn the traditional associate of yesterday into the company advocate of tomorrow. Technology like self-service check-out will replace the need for physical cashiers, creating space for retail employees to focus on the consumer experience. The NRF offers credential programs targeted to entry-level employees. Retailers looking to turn their sales staff into brand ambassadors (think Apple Store associates) can get training from the NRF. Programs created by the NRF are supported by large retailers, but operate independently.

These courses fill a need well for many employers, but we suggest you think about custom learning. The company itself knows where it’s heading and can anticipate the skills and behaviors it will need in the future. Company leadership also knows its own workforce – not all retail employees are alike, nor do they come into training from the same context. So our strong recommendation is to identify the employee behaviors that drive your business strategy, then let custom training take your employees from where they are to where you need them to be. You’ll be building your future company from the bottom up.

Consider what’s working well at Walmart. They created an academy to train their retail workforce in more advanced skills. Over the past two years, trainers have taught nearly half a million workers. And they’re looking to partner with other big retailers to create industry-wide training standards to position both companies and their workers for the future.

This is the kind of investment and proactive thinking that will pay off for retailers, employees, communities and customers as society evolves.

I admit that I only started paying attention to the Golden State Warriors two years ago. But I was glued to the TV this basketball season. KD! Steph! Klay! Draymond! And my favorite, swing man Iggie —Andre Iguodala. But my real hero is their coach, Steve Kerr. Thank you Joe Lacob, Peter Guber, and Bob Myers in the front office for funding this super team, but Kerr built and fostered the winning culture.

When interviewed, every player talks about teamwork and playing with joy. It’s no wonder that they led the league in most assists per game. And even though Kerr is too humble to take credit, most sports pundits attribute the winning culture to him. Another franchise could put great players on one team but would the team be as strong as the Warriors without the special culture? Nah.

We know that creating or shifting a culture is often difficult, if not impossible. Here are some change management concepts Coach Kerr used probably without even knowing it:

• Led by example by sharing the spotlight. Kerr consistently focused on his team, not himself. For example, when Kerr was too ill to coach and assistant coaches Luke Walton (2016) and Mike Brown (2017) had to step in, he gave them full credit for their decision-making and the wins.
• Used early adopters by showcasing selfless players like Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Yes, they’re talented players but they’re not showboats; they’re living testimonials to Kerr’s emphasis on teamwork. The “Splash Brothers” were part of the recruiting posse that convinced Kevin Durant to join the Warriors this season.
• Celebrated small wins by giving opportunities to younger players and patting them on the back for their efforts (even if they screwed up occasionally).
• Accepted diversity by managing the very passionate, soon to be crowned Defensive Player of the Year, Draymond Green. Not everyone has to fit the culture to the nth degree. Some dissention and variety are healthy.
• Created a movement by living the Warriors’ tagline “Strength in Numbers.” He optimized the team and kept everyone ready to contribute. When KD was out for 19 games, others – including the bench – jumped in to fill the void. During this period the Warriors still won 15 of 19 games. “Strength in Numbers” also applies to the fans. People could “hear us roar” from all parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.

A recent Harvard Business Review article* says, “…culture…has to live in the collective hearts and habits of people and their shared perception of ‘how things are done around here.’”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Golden State Warriors won their second NBA title in three years.

*Changing Company Culture Requires a Movement, Not a Mandate by Bryan Walker and Sarah A. Soule, June 20, 2017

What’s our problem? And by “our” I mean people whose job it is to achieve success by changing behavior toward a greater goal. Our problem is that, historically, we rely on the Telling People Stuff Model.

We’ve all experienced this – whether we are the teller or the “tellee.” Simply tell people what they should do differently, and they’ll fall in line. Sadly, we know that full compliance with this approach is pretty low.

Telling people stuff is the “what.” We learning and change professionals have long since moved on to the “how” — provide realistic, hands-on practice in a new behavior or skill, and you’ve really upped the chances of adoption. (And the chances of reaching the business objective you want.)

The best of us have integrated “why” with the “what” and “how.” The “why” element is about motivation. Real behavior change comes only to people who bring high levels of motivation to master new behaviors.

Recent work on purpose – the study of intrinsic motivation – suggests ways to increase motivation. Read this article, published in Training Industry Magazine; Emerson’s own Ceil Tilney describes the elements of purpose. She also illuminates the concept with ideas for adapting employee onboarding programs to a motivation-centered model

A while back, I started a project at a mammoth global client. They had just gone through a merger. Ok, not “just.” It had been five years – but you’d never have known it. The us/them dynamic between the two original companies was alive and well. Resistance to more change was rampant.

To make things more interesting, they were in the middle of a full SAP implementation. Anyone who has been through a big ERP project knows that it’s a huge change management effort, touching process, technology and people. No one looked ready. Management didn’t walk in the hallways; they ran. Everyone seemed breathless and unsure.

My team and I had been brought in to conduct a straightforward needs assessment workshop. Given the environment we encountered, I realized we had to change our plan. Soon after we started the first session, we put our agenda aside and listened. By the end of the session, they were in a more productive place. Here’s why.

They got it out.

The group was made up of employees from both original companies. They all had issues with the merger and with the imminent ERP. But it became clear that each person had vented only to those on “their own side.” For the first time in five years, the enemies looked at each other and spoke about the issues that had been troubling them. They had to say “you” instead of “they.” And after one perspective had been expressed, those on the other side had a chance to listen and respond.

They were able to focus on the differences that mattered.

By talking directly to each other, they were able to define their many differences. But then they saw that some of those differences weren’t relevant to what they wanted for the future.

They confessed. 

At one point, someone mentioned that when he tested the new SAP system, he found what he considered to be glitches. He proudly described an intricate workaround he had put in place. His confession opened up a conversation; many others revealed that they had also constructed ways to get around SAP transactions and processes. This created a bond between the two sides. It also started an honest conversation about why workarounds would ultimately fail and keep them from what they wanted.

They had an epiphany.

They realized it couldn’t get any worse. The suffering of these two groups was real. They were working in a state of chaos, confusion and stress. I wondered aloud if maybe participating in the needs assessment and contributing to a good implementation might actually help. “Well, I guess it couldn’t make things worse,” said one participant. Another said, “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

Score!

While I can’t pretend they were enthusiastic about the big change ahead, there was a clear shift: from active resistance to reluctant positive movement. We hadn’t yet touched our agenda, but we felt we had accomplished a lot.

A wise person once said, there are no statues of committees. But what if there were. Would your executive team get one? Executive teams provide strategy and leadership to drive performance. But good teams aren’t simply the right people with the right organization design. “Executive alignment” isn’t just a business buzz-word. It’s essential. When executives are not aligned, they can wreak havoc on an organization. The effects range from lack of coordination between functions to the emergence of warring factions. At a minimum, we see unnecessary competition for resources, hoarding of information, inefficiency, waste, and missed business objectives. The outcome is a decline in performance and organizational effectiveness.

The solution: executive teams must determine their values. These values provide framework – a set of shared ideas to guide the organization. Leadership values are like the organization’s soul. They answer questions like: Who are we as a business? Are we innovative, eco-friendly, or safety-focused? How do we get things done, through process or people? How do we treat each other; are we supportive or competitive? Values provide consistency – a foundation for the organization.

There are several steps teams must take to reap the benefits of a values-based organization. Here’s how to get started:

Determine Your Values

The leadership team must discuss and agree on their values. Start by brainstorming, then remove anything that’s not a value, but instead a strategy, tactic, or initiative. If you end up with a long list of values, distill it to the essentials – discarding the weaker suggestions and combining values that are similar. Shoot for a list short enough that everyone can remember it – no more than eight.

Share, Live and Celebrate Your Values

Use your values at leadership meetings. When making decisions, filter them through your values. Make sure they are understood at every level of the organization. Executives should talk to managers; managers should talk to employees. Use them in company communications. Build them into performance management. Highlight your top performers who demonstrate the values. Reinforce them during company celebrations. Partner with other companies and charitable organizations that share your values.

Share Your Values with the World

Values are an important part of your brand. Make your values visible in marketing and recruiting. They will strengthen both your customer brand and your employment brand.

Validate Your Values. 

Pressure-test those values during annual strategic planning. Discuss the relevance of each and how it is demonstrated throughout the organization. Does one need more focus from leadership? Any that are no longer relevant? A value that should be added? Change the list thoughtfully, though; values are meant to endure.

Aligning around your values is well worth the effort. Knowing who you are and what you believe in, as an organization, brings incredible clarity, focus and success.

Are you a project sponsor? Are you a good one? Solid change management means identifying the right people to sponsor a project – the right role…the right qualities. Yet, often, those “right” individuals accept the role of sponsor and then sit back and watch the program. They attend a meeting when asked. They take action on an issue when prompted.

If that sounds like you, you are not a good sponsor. Don’t worry, you can be one. You just have to understand that it’s not a passive role. Actually, it’s a very dynamic role, if you’re doing it right. A good sponsor does these things (and more), throughout the lifecycle of the project.

How to be a Stellar Project Sponsor

Identify and Resolve Issues

Don’t wait for your team to uncover issues. Take an active role in identifying and resolving problems. And tackle as many as possible before they become problems – risk mitigation is an essential part of your job.

For example, resources are common roadblocks. Be proactive; leverage your influence to grab the best people in your company for the team. When the team says they are understaffed in an area, listen. Bring in additional resources, as needed. And resources are not just human. Help the team get the facilities, technology, funding and organizational support they need.

Bare Minimum Tip: Review risks and issues once a month.

Communicate

Sponsors should not only receive communication from the project team, they should be active communicators on behalf of the project. Your job is to be on message, keep the company on message, and create the sense of urgency that maintains project momentum.

Before you can communicate a message, you have to have a message. Work with company leadership to make sure all understand the essentials: why is the current state broken, what the solution should be, what action the company is taking, and what the result will be.

Bare Minimum Tip: Contribute at least one key message in monthly project communications sent to all stakeholders.

Acknowledge the Good and the Bad

Good sponsors communicate the positives and negatives of the change. There will be pain points. Good sponsors make tough decisions to move forward…to pause…to change directions…or to stop. As the project team discovers the impacts on stakeholders of those decisions, it’s your job to communicate them.

These are great moments to keep your company’s culture in mind. Have you done a culture assessment? If not, you should. If you use words and examples that resonate well with employees, bad news won’t stall your project.

Bare Minimum Tip: Don’t hesitate when you communicate the “not so positive” news. Sharing the truth before alternate stories circulate earns you trust and credibility with stakeholders.

Review Progress and Support the Project Team

Good sponsors stay on top of project milestones at all times. They review status and understand what the project team needs to be successful.

You are the face of the project to your organization. So if there delays to communicate, new resources needed, or changes to the solution remember that the buck stops with you. Don’t suggest the team has stumbled; keep the company’s eye on the results you all want.

Tip for Sponsors: Once each month, plan to attend a project team status meeting to hear directly from those who are doing the work.

Endorse the Project

Part of your role is cheerleader. Goals and benefits should be on the tip of your tongue, and there’s no substitute for authentic enthusiasm from you.

Think about how to frame the benefits of the project for each audience. Why will employees love the new way of doing business? What speaks clearly to executives? Tell them which project results will deliver for them, in their own terms.

Bare Minimum Tip: Share project progress at regular executive meetings and all-company events.

These steps are easy to remember if you put their first letters together: I C A R E. If you do, this is how you show it.

Organizational communication is deceptive. It seems simple – just writing or speaking a message to managers and employees. Yet it’s often responsible for costly losses. Change in organizations – mergers, reorganization, process change, new IT solutions — is often a big investment. In a 2008 survey of 47 global companies, two of the top three reasons for unsuccessful change initiatives were a) not articulating a “burning need” for the change, and b) poor, untimely, unclear or inconsistent communications.

Why do so many communication efforts fall flat? Or, more importantly, why is YOUR communication ineffective?

We can’t know until we examine you. Yes, we treat a communication problem like a doctor treats a patient. There are many things that need to go right, to be healthy. When it comes to communication, five things have to go right; you must understand your audience, leverage organizational culture, have the right message, deliver it the right way, and balance your “push” (pain) information with “pull” (aspirational) information.

But let’s focus on some two common ailments: developing a poor message and delivering it badly.

The Right Message

The best messages are short, simple and easy to remember. They are the 30-second elevator speech — the 30,000-foot view. They are the distillation of everything into simple, compelling, “message points” – single words, each supported by a few phrases, facts or quotes that reinforce that point.

Because most adults are visual learners, you’ll help people remember your message if you associate it with both words and pictures. Imagine drawing a box or a triangle. Now imagine each corner labeled with a major message point. Remember, message points are best if boiled down to one word. That simple visual helps those responsible for telling your story stay “onmessage.”

Successful messages invariably leave some good stuff on the cutting room floor. A message is not a treatise on everything an organization or project does. It is a tool to earn the attention of your target audience and to help align key messengers. When a busy executive meets a colleague in the hall, her ability to recall the three key words and associated facts (without relying on a PowerPoint deck!) increases the chances your audience will hear about the change in a consistent and sincere way.

Think of messages like pieces of meat used to distract the dog guarding the jewels. They are the best arguments you have to grab people’s attention, answer problems, refute weaknesses, highlight strengths – and steal the jewels – whether that is their support, their resources, their business, their financial assistance or their hearts and minds.

The Right Delivery

There is nothing magic about delivering a message in the right way, yet it so often goes wrong. A few things can improve your chances of success.

First, use a personal touch. Tell real stories that support your message. It’s important to include comments and quotes from people who are a lot like your target audience. And, in addition to referencing others like them, use experts. Third-party validation of your change, by trusted sources, is really powerful. Remember, “Four out of five dentists recommend Trident for their patients who chew gum.”

Second: repeat, repeat, repeat. Re-use facts, stories, and information. Studies show the average person must hear, see or read a message seven times before really understanding it. Once you and your team are sick of your message — when it rings in your ears at breakfast like a bad jingle – know that your audience is just starting to hear it for the first time.

Third, maintain message discipline. Each presentation, every article, public remarks, emails, etc…must be on-message. Wandering off-message is easy because your product, project or organization is about much more than the message. But talking about those other things takes you off track. It distracts from the message you’ve been repeating, over and over, to create a shared direction.

Write the Story of Your Success

Companies face many challenges when they approach change. But the right message, delivered in the right way, puts you ahead of the game. Following sound communication practices lets you tell your story – consistently, repeatedly — on your terms.

Originally posted July 26, 2012.

Over half of all mergers and acquisitions fail, and many sources put the failure rate above 80%. Over half of those failures can be attributed to corporate culture clash.* While many deals look great on paper, few organizations pay proper attention to the challenges of combining two cultures. Culture is difficult to shift; combining two organizational cultures is even more challenging.

Over the weekend Kraft Heinz, the consumer goods giant controlled by Brazilian private equity group 3G and Warren Buffett, made and withdrew a $143B takeover approach for the Dutch-Anglo consumer goods group Unilever. The deal would have been the second-largest corporate merger on record.

Though it remains to be seen whether the alluring mega-deal is dead, Kraft Heinz might have been smart to veer away from Unilever in the first place. Since 3G consolidated Kraft and Heinz in 2015, Kraft Heinz has doubled profit margins to 30% and reduced employee headcount by more than 20% (to 42,000). The combined company derives more than 75% of revenue from the US market and operates eight major brands with declining revenues. Kraft Heinz is focused on driving costs out of the business. It does not reinvest substantially in its brands and thus needs an acquisition to grow revenues.

Unilever could not be more different. Unilever’s CEO abandoned quarterly reporting to concentrate on long term-revenue growth. It operates 13 major brands with 58% of revenue coming from emerging markets. Also, it has only half the profit margin of Kraft Heinz and employs 169,000 people worldwide. Unilever’s most important shareholder is a charitable foundation; their focus is on long term sustainability and profitability, not on cost-cutting for the sake of short term profitability. Unilever believes strongly in investing in its brand to drive organic revenue growth.

To those of us with expertise in corporate culture, these facts suggest very different cultural archetypes.

So Kraft Heinz could undoubtedly improve profit margins at Unilever, but would that equal success? It is doubtful the Unilever brands would continue to flourish under a drastically different management philosophy. The Financial Times reported one Unilever executive’s summary: “The deal made perfect financial and strategic senses for them, but absolutely none for us.”

Before making an offer, Kraft Heinz should have examined culture. Evaluating cultural fit, up-front, is a great investment. It helps companies avoid the high cost of a failed deal or the embarrassment of an open rejection.

What’s a Growth-Minded Organization To Do?

1. Assess your own cultural identity.Culture is made up of the unspoken rules by which people in an organization act, every day. A strong culture is a source of synergy and efficiency. Cultures aren’t better or worse than each other; each successful organization’s culture is, by definition, good. You shouldn’t try to change it. But you should try to figure out what it is, especially if you want to manage an acquisition effectively. Conduct an evaluation to identify your own organization’s dominant culture. Many culture assessments assign the organization an “archetype,” which captures the mind-set and behaviors of leaders and employees.
2. Conduct a culture audit of potential partners. Assessing the culture of the target company should be part of the due diligence process. The acquiring party must look for companies that fit, add to, or extend its own culture. The acquirer might look at qualitative data like mission/purpose, culture, vision, values, goals and future aspirations, and/or quantitative data from workplace assessments. Some companies have done their own culture assessments; in that case, the acquiring company should ask for those results. If, like Kraft Heinz, your culture is consistent with financial agility and tools like cost-cutting, don’t buy an innovator that requires massive, long-term, thoughtful investment to be successful.
3. Define the new organization with culture in mind. Even in the case of a good match, the new combined entity must redefine itself as one organization with a shared mission, values and culture. Smart leaders build plans for culture integration and include them in the approach strategy and offer. And before the organizations become one, management must be aligned around the key strategic and cultural themes for the new organization.

Consider the “Different Works” ad campaign from Alaska Airlines and Mekanism, its branding agency. Alaska Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are both great brands with a loyal consumer following, yet neither customer base was excited about the recent merger. The new ad campaign highlights the fact that while a pairing may seem strange at first, it could be a great fit. In its ads, Mekansim asks us to consider electricity and guitars, labradors and poodles, salty and sweet, comedy and romance, chocolate and bacon, and now Alaska Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.

One gets the sense that management did consider the cultural pitfalls of acquiring an iconic brand. Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska Airlines said, “Alaska and Virgin are different airlines, but we believe different works. The two airlines may look different, but our core customer and employee focus is very much the same.” Mike Zlatoper, EVP of Mekanism, explained, “What we really wanted to do was lean in and acknowledge the truth. On the surface these airlines are different but underneath there are lots of similarities.” Alaska Airlines has tapped into a fundamental success factor in corporate mergers: once you believe you have a good partner, focus attention on the synergy.

Note that we are talking about focusing attention, not simply communicating. Bringing together two companies creates a whirlwind of information. Employees and other stakeholders will try to filter and make sense of all of it, drawing their own conclusions in the absence of clarity. Unless you focus attention on the right information, uncertainty will reign. Uncertainty is the greatest enemy of sustainable change. Employees need to feel confident and secure during a business combination. Unless leaders and managers focus on the right messages and a clear path forward, any other efforts of the leadership team will be negated.

Managing a business today is hard enough. During a merger the challenges are acute and the stakes are much higher. Culture is one key to success.

*Taken from public sources such as Bloomberg, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal

The Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 word of the year is “post-truth.” The expression has been around for a while, but usage spiked after Brexit and throughout the U.S. presidential election.

President Obama reminded us in his farewell speech that we now live in a post-truth world. “Increasingly we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that’s out there.” Referring to climate change, the president lamented that “without some common baseline of facts – without a willingness to admit new information and that your opponent might be making a fair point and that science and reason matter – we’re going to keep talking past each other.”

This problem is not new, it’s just come to a tipping point. “Confirmation bias” is a tendency to perceive information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs. The term was first coined by English psychologist Peter Wason in 1960, and has been supported by many researchers since then. Daniel Kahneman was the first psychologist to win a Nobel Prize in Economics along with his colleague Amos Tversky, for their work in decision-making and behavioral science. Kahneman pretty much predicted our post-truth predicament and fake news obsession in his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, “Contrary to the rules of science, people seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold.”

In other words, when we read an article or an email, watch the news, or hear a presentation, we unconsciously cherry-pick data and focus on information that agrees with our existing position. And we dismiss information that doesn’t fit that position. Dr Kahneman also observed, “People generally look for a plausible scenario that conforms to their understanding of reality. We are unable to imagine…installing a third-party president.” It’s safe to say most of us did not imagine a Trump presidency a year ago.

The rise of unabashed “post-truth” thinking is more evident than ever before. People effectively cease to see what’s in front of them. For example, even though the earth gets hotter every year, many people deny the existence of climate change. Many simply could not imagine a Trump presidency, so they ignored signs to the contrary.

Some in the news arena have taken advantage of this bias, intentionally publishing “fake news” and highly one-sided content, targeting eager audiences. This appeals to our confirmation biases – there’s no need to swat away information we don’t agree with; it simply isn’t there.

Most of us aren’t in a position to influence news organizations or political dynamics. But many of us are in business leadership positions. We live in times of fast and fundamental transformation. During then President-Elect Trump’s recent news conference the stock market fluctuated wildly as he singled out the pharma, auto and defense industries. Cutting defense spending; taxing infrastructure investment in foreign countries and slashing pharmaceutical prices are all on the table.

Is your leadership team ready to manage in a post-truth world?

I’ve spent over a decade working with corporate leaders to apply behavioral economics to transformation. To survive, we will have to get employees to change the way they work, probably more than once. Managing big change is already a tall order, but understanding behavioral bias can help us navigate these choppy waters.

What can we do based on our understanding of confirmation bias?

• We know employees will approach any change with a bias – for or against. We know that the bias will act like a filter – causing people to accept and believe our messages only if they fit that bias. Often their bias is based on history – they will look for experiences that are similar to whatever it is we want them to do. The last system implementation? The last wave or policy changes? The last layoff? We should give them the right bias. Get ahead of it – offer employees the thing we WANT them to compare this change to. Compare the change to something that went well. Or tell a compelling story of a company that did the same thing, and came out shining. “Remember BigBang 2010? We all pulled together and it was a great success – our company grew and everyone was pumped. Now get ready for BigBang 2018! We’re getting ready for a whole new level of excellence.”
• We know employees will also have a bias based on the team involved. We should engineer the face of the change to use that bias. Did consultants lead the last painful transition? The bias: consultants are bad. No amount of talking will change that – your praise of this new consulting firm will bounce right off them. So put popular and influential employees out front. Did employees learn about that system that failed through all-hands PowerPoint presentations? The bias: big presentations mean bad news. You could put the best news in the world into a deck and they’d still be suspicious. So use a channel they already like – maybe their own small team meetings, or the celebratory company off-site.

Michael Lewis, in his new book, the Undoing Project, brought a fresh perspective to Kahneman and Tversky’s work. He writes that when people become attached to a theory, they fit the evidence to the theory rather than the theory to the evidence. The key to a post-truth workforce is not a barrage of facts and rationale. Don’t combat bias directly – use it strategically and everyone wins.

Christian is Vice President, Consulting for Emerson Human Capital. Christian has led enterprise wide transformational retail consulting projects for Gallup and Accenture and worked in global development for Walmart and Metro AG.

It’s been three weeks since the presidential election. Regardless of how you voted or what you’ve experienced in the past, it’s normal to feel uneasy long after the results have been tallied. For many of us it is simply the stress of the unknown, while others are grieving a loss.

According to Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize-winner and psychologist notable for his work in behavioral economics, we feel the pain of loss more acutely than the pleasure of a win. And for more than half of voters this year, the election was a monumental loss.

We weathered a contentious campaign, often focused on exposing our deepest and darkest fears. 24-hour access to social media also blurred the line between truth and fiction, encouraging candidates to continually defend their actions instead of focusing on the issues. Researchers agree that it is common – particularly when we feel passionate about something – to make decisions based on our emotions and then search for facts to support our choice. Unfortunately, these emotional decisions can lead to sleepless nights and painful interactions with family and friends who don’t feel the same way.

I’d like to think that it is not a coincidence that Thanksgiving falls soon after the election. When experiencing big change, it is so important to recognize what we are thankful for, take time to decompress, and surround ourselves with whatever is familiar, controlled, and allows us to be successful. During the holiday season, that means connecting with family and friends, eating comfort food, celebrating, and taking part in traditional activities. It is all about surrounding yourself with what you know and what empowers you.

For those of us still anxious after the holiday, here are four tips to reduce stress and move forward.

Break obsessive thinking. When we are in a state of fear or anxiety, we obsess. Obsessive negative thoughts can disrupt our health – even alter our eating and sleeping patterns. We tend to imagine the worst. Why? Loss aversion. We are hard-wired to anticipate the worst in service of our own survival. To successfully refocus, we must divert attention from the obsessive behavior.

Game designer and author Jane McGonigal advocates the use of technology to create a positive state of mind. She suggests playing a strategic game like Candy Crush or Terraria to fully occupy your brain. Go for a run, read a book, complete the New York Times crossword puzzle or knit a scarf. When you are able to clear your head, it is easier to break the cycle of obsessive thinking.

Gather your “power-ups”. According to Dr. McGonigal, real-life “power-ups” are people, activities or events that give you energy and encouragement. Try joining a morning exercise class or take a run to your favorite neighborhood coffee shop. Not as active first thing in the morning? Listen to music while getting ready for the day or play with your children. I try to start and end my day using the Five Minute Journal. It helps me focus my attention on what is right in the world.

The key is to do something that makes you smile first thing in the morning.

Design your future. Mahatma Ghandi said it best, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” But that is a tall order. How about starting with a plan or written strategy for overcoming your fears. Make sure your plan includes small steps with milestones so you can see your progress. When we see progress – success — we are more likely to continue.

Comedian John Oliver has been a great resource for those who want to make an impact and suggests donating or volunteering for causes you care about. Even five dollars toward something you believe in can give you a sense of control. It is also important to stay informed and vote in the next election. There will be another opportunity for your voice to be heard!

Be kind. The rhetoric in this election was painful and we all know that words can and did incite aggression on the campaign trail, and protests afterward.

Actively engage in kindness. It’s a small but powerful step in the right direction. Start in the car. Slow down. Check your anger. Don’t honk your horn. Safely let someone in. Imagine the slow car in front of you has your own sweet parent or grandparent driving and treat them as you want your loved one treated. Our nation could use a little kindness right now. Kindness is a muscle that needs exercise. Find a way to practice it daily.