Kurt and I recently had babies. Well, technically our hero-partners did – and it was incredible and they are as strong as they are beautiful. As parents know and as everyone else can imagine, welcoming a tiny human being into the world is an awesome and, at times, overwhelming change. In our cases, the birth was facilitated by midwives – Kurt collaborated with South Community Birth and I once again worked with the Strathcona Midwifery Collective. Here are five change management lessons from midwives.
Know your team
With something as life-altering and intimate as giving birth, being on the same page with your care provider and, most importantly, your partner is critical. In getting to know our midwives (two of them work as a team for every family), they learned that I like to make decisions quickly, whereas Michelle takes her time. For Kurt, one of the biggest benefits was the holistic support from multiple midwives, nurse practitioners and also the birth team’s doula. The lesson from all this is when you are leading your next change initiative, deeply understanding the styles and needs of your team because there is incredible strength and intelligence in diversity. Such traits will be the barriers and/or accelerators to implementing the change.
Have a plan
So many decisions about where and when and how to have a baby are factored into a team’s birth plan. My favourite thing about our midwives is that, in addition to being caring (and often hilarious) women, they offered all the facts and data for us to digest. Judgments were not made. No one felt shamed. And we co-created the best plan for us. At Vancity, we just completed an upgrade of our banking system and we practiced the massive task three times before doing the real thing, which allowed us to prepare for all sorts of scenarios and questions like, “where do I go for help?”, “how will the system change?” or “How am I expected to manage all the details?”.
Plan to adapt
The thing about big changes, like birth, is that plans change and we need to adapt accordingly. A friend of ours adjusted her hospital-oriented birth plan because she went into labour during rush hour and staying home felt better than sitting in a car and, possibly, having the baby en route. For Michelle and me, we were ready to stay home if the circumstances required it, but our plan was always to go to the hospital – to make us feel prepared, though, we received a home birth kit from our midwifery team that possessed all the things we’d need to adapt our plan if necessary. For Kurt and his partner, the hospital was always the main birth location. To prepare, they packed a big bag of birth stuff based on advice from their birth team (pillows, change of clothes, downloaded copy of an X-Men movie) that helped them feel ready for multiple situations – anything to make the stay in the hospital more comfortable was essential.
Communicate constantly
Without going into a lot of detail, I can say that from our first appointment to the final push, our midwives were available, informative and very supportive. Their communication was very customized, too – for example, the phrase “this is safe” was used several times in labour, which, upon reflection, my lovely-hero-wife, Michelle, said was incredibly helpful. And leading up to the birth we had all of our questions answered within 24-hours, which informed our decision-making and enhanced our confidence. According to HBR’s Chris Musselwhite and Tammie Plouffe, by normalizing and integrating changes (and the language that explains it) into every day conversations or practices, midwives and business leaders alike achieve an inclusive approach to change that speaks to individuals in the way that they understand.
Think of the world
When experiencing change it is common to focus just on our personal relationship with what’s happening. Strathcona Midwifery Collective explores birth and health beyond their clients and local networks: “Our midwives work alongside community groups to support healing and structural changes in our health care system to creates space for individuals and communities to thrive.” When getting your team ready for a big or small change, remember to understand its place in the world and offer the appropriate context. Folks will always want to know why change is happening and what it means for the world.