Take the case of XYZ company...

Juan, the eager Director of Marketing, came up with a great idea for increased productivity — an immediate change in department data gathering. All managers who supervised field workers were especially affected as within a week they would be issued iPads that use sophisticated software to take the place of customary blank, printed forms and hand-written notes for data collection in the field.

Penny, a 20-year veteran and star manager in the company, was especially resistant to this change. Employees had looked to her as an expert leader in the "old-school" approaches, and she felt worried and downtrodden about the technology changes. From complaining angrily to peers about the iPad to "forgetting" to enroll in the software training, Penny felt more workplace stress than ever. She began withdrawing from the good communication she normally had with supervisees and found her field reports to be late and shoddy. Thus, her performance reviews were no longer glowing.

Unable to see herself managing her own emotions while leading her supervisees to embrace the change, Penny submitted her resignation. Juan was sad to see her go and felt bad about Penny's marred perception of XYZ company. He realized that the technology change could have been handled differently.