Two kinds of change.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do
There are two kinds of change challenges: Technical and adaptive.
How to do open heart surgery is a technical challenge. The skills and training necessary to do this are well known, and there is a direct path of time and training required if you want to become a masterful heart surgeon.
An adaptive challenge would be teaching a doctor how to develop a bedside manner or develop the skills of empathy and caring to be able to handle the human elements of illness or disease, and also handle their own ability to manage the stress and difficulties of the job.
There is no exact path for that, and it's a more subtle art. You might have had the experience of how few doctors have developed that particular skill set, which is clearly a very important and often neglected part of our healthcare system. That requires a mindset and a state of being that is capable of understanding the complexities of the human experience.
Most people try to solve adaptive challenges with technical fixes. Perhaps it's why so-change programs don't really change much, and in spite of all the talk about values and culture, many so-called successful organizations are still just glorified treadmills where you work as long and as hard as you can to be happy.
In coaching we have a notion that you don't coach the problem, you coach the person, and it's the same with trying to identify adaptive problems from technical ones. I believe you have to move away from the problem and move to the person having the problem to find lasting solutions.
It appears many of us don't find the integration we are seeking in our lives, and the corporate world often doesn't offer much room for supporting the notion of a holistic approach to work. And senior leaders and managers are often too busy running the race to even think about it.
The constant tug of war between profits and people, values and success, and work and play never seems to get resolved. It's always one or the other that appears to win or take over.
The solutions we require in our 21st-century world are asking for a paradigm belief system shift, based on breaking old patterns that don't serve us very well, but we have just become very accustomed to them.
The phone has been ringing for a long time - It is just a question of how soon we will answer the call.
Here are a few ideas that I think need to be retired.
There is never enough____________
Yes, there is!
That's just the way it is
No, it's not!
We tried that. It didn't work.
Talk to Thomas Edison about that
It will never work here
Of course, it will if you create the right circumstances
It's too hard.
Yes it is...next
What's mindfulness got to do with productivity?
Everything!
If we can't measure it, it isn't important
Look at your heroes - we don't admire just what they did, but who they are. And they often didn't look like much on paper.
The Circle as a Leadership Philosophy
There are no sharp edges in a circle, and no way to know what is beginning and what is ending. It all becomes present and important.
When you make your goals linear, you are always on the "GET SOMEWHERE JOURNEY."
It's no wonder people become so burned out. They are not taught nor encouraged to enjoy the process in their work lives.
One must inhale to exhale
How often do we not see the connections in our lives, the intimate dance we have with all things?
Success
We focus so much on successful endings in the business world, but what about the beginnings?
Every successful ending was an unknown, perhaps risky beginning. Every success story was once a question mark. Will it work?
When you see success somewhere, understand it began somewhere else that wasn't successful.
It was only a seed in someone’s mind when it started. If you can connect your business life as a circle rather than a straight line, you can see the importance and value of all of it, both the wins and the losses.
Give & Take
We say giving is important in our world, but how can we give if no one is there to receive it? They are equal forces for me, and each of us will be on both sides of that equation at some point in our life.
Isn't that a beautiful thought that one must receive in order to let someone else have the joy of being a giver.
Equality
Everything is connected to everything else, and you can't separate out the aspects of your life you think are painful or unnecessary.
It's all necessary
It's all important
It all matters
It's all equal in the end. It's just how you choose to work with perceived opposites that matters.
In order to overcome our personal and organizational immunity to change, we must uncover:
What true commitments do we want to focus on?
What we are doing or not doing to support them?
What are the things that really compete with our commitments?
What the big status quo assumptions are underneath the process that actually prevents us from changing?
From there we uncover the strategies required to begin to implement sustainable change in people and cultures.