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Restoring Confidence and Managing Change

by | Mon, Aug 21 2023

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Have you struggled to adapt to the constantly changing world we find ourselves living in? If you have, you’re not alone! We’ve all felt the sting of Covid over the past few years. But we can’t afford to let uncertainty and confusion rule.

The way we function needs to change just as fast as the world around us changes. Business and consumer confidence is one element that indicates how the economy and society are performing. These principles also apply to the sustainability of our churches and ministries.

Christina Dean leads Uniforte, an organisation that specialises in change management. She’s a trainer, coach and mentor whose experience of God in business has been her inspiration to succeed. Christina joined us on 20Twenty to share her advice on how a business can be transformed into an enduring success.

Develop Empathy

After a stint as Deputy General Manager for the Gold Coast Indy in the early 1990s, Christina found herself unemployed for the first time. It took her 13 months to find a new job. Ironically, that role was working for the Gold Coast City Council, helping 700 long term unemployed people get on their feet again.

‘I needed that experience of being unemployed to develop empathy,’ Christina says. ‘But I also had the knowledge to know exactly what these people needed. As a result of that, I developed a program and the Federal Government started asking me how I got such good results.’

God also led Christina to read 1 Corinthians 13 for a whole year.

Christina believes that what made the difference in her program was developing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for people that primarily serve them. ‘It’s about the heart of the work. Are the changes done to the staff, or for the staff?’ These are the guidelines for Christina. She says nothing was more joyful than to see people get new jobs and transform their lives. That was Christine’s defining moment, and she understood from then on that God was in control.

Transformation is Necessary

‘I could have been a victim in it all,’ Christina says. ‘But God was working on my soul. It was actually up to me to get my head right and my body right, and to actually step up and take the reins. And I’ve been doing that ever since.’

Christina didn’t actually have any qualifications at that time, so she had to learn a lot. She didn’t know how to manage projects, or counsel people to manage change. So as soon as she got the job, Christina decided she was never going to let this happen to her again. She enrolled in university and eventually completed her MBA.

‘The Lord planted in me a fascination for how organisations go through transformation,’ Christina says. ‘And as a result of that, since 1997, I’ve been working in government and all sorts of organisations helping them to manage change.’

Christina says that finding someone to trust is so important, because you feel like you can’t trust yourself anymore.  Your plans and goals have suffered, and often that leads to marital difficulties as well. You believe that all of this adds up to who you are, but it’s actually a lie. We really need to know that Satan is our enemy, and he is vindictive.

‘As Christians, we are Christ’s,’ says Christina. ‘That is the one thing we all have to really learn.  It means putting down our pride and saying, okay God, maybe I’m not as hot as I thought I was.’

Collaborate and Cooperate

‘Love is also a choice,’ Christina adds. ‘We can choose to live out love because we are Christ’s, or remain bitter and angry at what life throws at us.’

‘There are periods of time where God will just take you through and heal your soul. That’s certainly been the story of my journey.’

Christina says her journey is so applicable to organisations. ‘If we have organisations that are filled with anger, bitterness and insults, we are going to have division. And that makes Satan laugh his head off. That destroys businesses. Unity is the key to anything.’

‘To have ways that we can come together as a family, business or church to find common goals, collaborate and cooperate, we must first put aside the bitterness and anger.’

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