Tag Archives: Change

Proving a Better Way Isn’t Always Easy

The time for change had come.  The leadership had tried working with the people running the program for almost two years and still they hadn’t made the progress they desired and knew could be achieved.  I was approached and asked to look at the program and see what would be needed to get the desired results.

I began, as I do with any change project, by listening vigilantly to the people sponsoring the program as well as the students participating in it.  What I found was a disjoint between what the sponsors wanted to see learned and what was actually internalized.  The program had been around for over 30 years in similar forms throughout the world and by all records, very successful in accomplishing its goals.  Why was ours not reaching its full potential?

Keeping in mind all I heard from the listening to the people and all I learned from researching these kinds of programs I created a whole new design for the program.  It felt like it was time to try something new.  Traditionally, the program was always delivered in one block of time, usually five days in a row.  My design was to split it across seven sessions, meeting for a full day once a month.

It took a little work to convince the leadership to try the new idea.  Once they were on board, the task become convincing the groups that sponsor the program to support the new design.  I knew presenting such a different format would be met with some resistance.  When it was time to present to the sponsoring groups I thought I was ready.  I had my research, my design and feedback from past participants.  What I didn’t have was data supporting the seven-month format. 

I was not prepared for the vehemence of their response.  It was more than just resistance to change; many people felt the program was working just fine as it was and the change wasn’t necessary.  Others felt the change would make finding participants much more difficult due to the extended commitment.  Still others saw the change as corrupting the tradition of the program and would cause a negative perception for the sponsors.  A few were willing to try it for a year but reserved full support until they saw some results.  After what seemed like hours of discussion we had enough support to go forward with the new design.

The first year saw a small group of participants, all fully sponsored.  The results were better than any of us could ever imagine.  When asked about their experience, all the participants thought they learned more from the once a month format than they would have learned had all the information been presented in a one week program.  The program was, by all records, a huge success.  While we won many more supporters after that first year, there still were those who disagreed with the new format.

The change has been in effect for the past five years and the number of people supporting has steadily grown.  While there are still some who would rather see the format go back to one week, many, many others like it just the way it is.

It took almost five years of answering questions, resolving concerns and graduating successful participants to prove the validity of this programs new design.   While it wasn’t always easy, it was always worth it.  It took a little faith and a lot of confidence.

Share

Winning and Losing

All our lives we are told to win, win, win!  We’re encouraged to be the best student and get the highest grades and ranking in our class.  When we play sports it becomes get the most points or cross the finish line first.  Even into adulthood with our work the drive is to make more money and move up the ladder.  If you haven’t been subjected to any of these I’m happy for you.  I’ve seen it far more often than not and seen the negative consequences it can create.

These win-lose scenarios may create an atmosphere that motivates people to strive to be better but only for a short while.  Once you’ve been on the losing side of the equation the competition isn’t motivating any longer.  In fact, what happens is the “loser” starts resenting the “winner.”  Before too long the person winning the competition can be made to feel like they are losing instead.  In these cases, the win-lose turns into an ugly lose-lose situation.

I have had disagreements with plenty of people regarding win-lose versus lose-lose and win-win scenarios.  I have no problem with friendly competition (win-lose) because it does help drive many of us to be better.  If we are playing a game a lot of the fun comes from trying to win the game.  But, what happens when the same person wins over and over and over?  You guessed it; no one wants to play anymore.  The person who was wining loses because no one will play and everyone else loses because they don’t have a chance; turning the win-lose into lose-lose. 

Not all examples of this are as obvious.  How about in business; how many meetings have you attended that you thought were a waste of time?  Think about one of them.  What made the meeting so bad?  Did the leader care about your ideas, help you to do something better or were they more focused on the leader’s own wants?  Would you say the meeting was a win-win, win-lose or lose-lose? 

I’m sure the leader of the meeting would say they were going to for a win-win.  People don’t generally call meetings unless they want something positive from them.  I’m also sure the participants would say this particular meeting was a lose-lose.  If people attending felt they wasted their time they are going to feel a loss for themselves as well as lessening their respect for the leader.

Striving for the win-win in all situations gets better results.  Games trying for win-win focus on the fun of the competition more than who gets the most points.  In business the win-win comes when everyone can gain something from their work.  Sometimes it’s additional knowledge or feeling respected, other times it’s having your idea be the catalyst for something big in the company.   

On the big scale of life, there is no win-lose; only win-win or lose-lose.  The question is whether to follow the common, easy path which leads to lose-lose or the less traveled, harder path leading to win-win.  The latter will make all the difference.

Share

Patience, Balance, and Relaxation

I’ve been a trainer and teacher for all my adult years.  At the core, it is what I am.  It seems I look at every situation as a learning opportunity – sometimes to the frustration of my friends and family. 

Always trying to find better ways to reach people I developed three basic principles that appear in everything we do: patience, balance, and relaxation.  Before we get twisted in multiple definitions let me define how I use them.

Patience is about waiting for the right moment to act.  You do this automatically in many situations.  An example is waiting your turn to speak when in a conversation with someone.  If you try to speak at the same time as someone else something in the conversation gets lost.

Balance is about knowing what to do when patience has determined the right moment to act.  Knowledge coupled with understanding creates balance. We are learning creatures.  The more we learn the better our lives become.  The more we learn the more balance we have in our lives.

Relaxation is about not trying to make something happen but letting it happen.  When we have patience to wait for the right moment; have the balance of knowing and understanding what to do; and trust to let it happen, all goes well.  The hard part of this is overriding our desire to control everything around us.

Let’s look at an example where you probably already employ our three principles: driving a car.  You’re on the highway and determine you need to change lanes because the car you are approaching is moving slower than you.  Do you just switch lanes?  Hopefully not; first you look to make sure the lane where you want to go is clear.  You wait for the right moment to change lanes.  This becomes especially important the more traffic there is on the road.  Now that we’ve got the right moment we have to know what to do in that moment; turn on the blinker, rotate the steering wheel appropriately, check our speed, and keep an eye on all the other vehicles.  The relaxation is a little harder to see.  No, we don’t just go limp at the steering wheel and expect the car to operate on its own.  Relaxation in this case is being comfortable with our steering; speed and spacing to change lanes.  If you don’t think this is letting it happen try driving with someone who has just received their driving permit.

I have yet to be presented with a situation where these principles don’t apply.  Think of anything you already do well and these three principles will be present.  Think of something you want to do better and at least one of these three will be the reason you still struggle.

Share

To Change Or Not To Change

The biggest difficulty with discussing change is the vastness of the areas change can encompass.  To make this complex topic more manageable, let’s categorize change into one of three levels.

Level 1 change would be the no thought and no choice changes in our lives.  One example would be aging.  While we might fight to keep our bodies from breaking down, we have no control over the fact that with every passing moment we are aging.  Another example of level 1 would be the seasons.  Aside from living at the equator, everyone lives in areas where each season is marked with some kind of change.  Yes, it is your choice of where you live but you have no say in how the seasons play out, just how you deal with them.

Level 2 changes would be ones where little thought and energy is needed to enact.  Some examples would include buying food and putting gasoline in your car.  When the cupboards and refrigerator are running low on food you have to change your routine to go to the store and purchase more.  Even if part of your regular routine is shopping for food, you still make choices about what food you buy.  If you are part of the small percentage of people who always shop at the same time and always buy the same items then this could get elevated to level 3 should some change happen.  The same holds true for putting fuel in our cars.  Most of us don’t stop by the gas station at the same time on the same day each week; most of us go when our car tells us it is low on fuel.

Level 3 changes are the ones that give us the most grief.  These are the ones that require a fair amount of thought to perform and usually more energy.  Examples would include learning a new skill, like driving a car for the first time, or trying a shift in our lives, like leaving our job or changing a relationship.  These are the ones we dread the most.

When asking the question, “to change or not to change,” it’s the level 3 changes most people want to avoid.  We’re okay with level 1 because, well, we have no choice.  Level 2 doesn’t bother us much because they’re part of our normal living experience.  They can be inconvenient at times, like getting home to find the refrigerator bare and having to go back out for food, but we don’t give them a lot of thought.  Level 3’s on the other hand cause us pain, agony, anxiety, and just about every other negative adjective you can bring to mind.  They’re also the ones that, once accomplished, can bring us the most happiness, joy, and good fortune imaginable.

Share

Fate or Personal Choice

Many years ago, during one of my life coaching classes, I took part in a discussion of fate versus personal choice.  It wasn’t surprising, because of the subject matter, to see everyone in the class pick the argument that our lives are totally ours to choose what to do.  I found myself standing alone among two dozen people.  My argument is that life is both.

I’ve always had a hard time making the argument for one versus the other.  To say everything is fated takes away any freedom in our choices and to say that everything is personal choice takes away the possibility of a bigger picture (a view larger than all of us combined.)

I maintain that the universe, God, the collective consciousness – life – has at least an overview of a designed path for each of us.  Within that design we have the free will to choose whatever direction we want, including the ability to go completely opposite of the big picture.  The issue that arises is that life isn’t always clear about which direction it wants us to take.  This leads to a lot of bumbling around, testing different options, and making some less than perfect moves.

What I’ve found is if the desired direction is a very important one, life will keep throwing it in front of you, no matter how many times you wonder away from it.  Writing this blog is a good example.  I’ve been told by a multitude of people over the past four or five years that I should be sharing my thoughts with everyone.  I kept choosing to not do it, and yes I had plenty of excuses of why I couldn’t do it – it wasn’t always a conscious choice to turn away.  Yet, time and again someone else would bring it back to my attention until now when I decided to follow it.

I don’t know why it so important for me to write this regularly, but it is.  Maybe it’s to help you with your life path choices.  Maybe it’s to help me with my life choices.  Maybe it’s some of both.  While the final goal may not be clear, it is clear this is what I should be doing and I’ve made a choice to do it.  I can say that a part of me is relieved and excited about this path while another part is scared and stressed, but that’s a story for another day.

The point I’m trying to make is life has a design, a fate if you will, for each of us.  At the same time, we have the free will to choose whatever direction we want to follow, regardless of how that fits with the big design.  The best part of being able to make our own choices is that we never have to stay with any one choice.  If one way isn’t right, we can go another way or another way.

If you find yourself really stressing over the path you are on, it’s probably because there are new choices for you to make.  Is it time to make a different choice to get a different, and maybe better, result?  Who knows it might relieve the stress and increase your life’s excitement.

Share

Why is Change so hard?

Change is so hard for us because we are familiar with the path we’re on and we like familiarity. Familiarity gives us a sense of balance, ease, and steadiness. These are strong feelings. So strong that even if we know there is a better path to take we need an enormous amount of energy to overcome these feelings.

Let’s look at an example.

You realize that your life has turned into working and sleeping. You want to have more of a life outside of work. You remember when you used to have all sorts of plans for different things you wanted to do. You decide that you had better start doing some of those things; after all, you aren’t getting any younger. Determined to change, you schedule yourself for that evening class you’ve always wanted to take. The day of first class comes and an “emergency” at work keeps you late. No problem, missing one class isn’t that bad. The second day of class arrives and something else keeps you from making it. For the next few class dates you find yourself making excuses why this isn’t a good time to go. Before you realize it the class is over and you are no closer to learning what was in it.

What happened? You know what you want; you put a plan in place to achieve it yet it still didn’t happen. Change sure is hard! Let’s look at the example in terms of the three factors discussed earlier. You’ve gotten into the routine of working and sleeping, forgoing almost everything else. So to change that routine requires you to break your sense of balance with that routine. This causes the ease at which you follow that routine to be thrown off, creating tension. And that puts the steadiness of working and sleeping at jeopardy. Our minds have a hard enough time dealing with one of these factors so when all three are off we resist the change, making it hard.

Change doesn’t have to be hard. If you persevere you can get through any change. Now that you know why that change was so difficult maybe we can make it easier to get through it. We know that there will be resistance to being off balance, in tension, and unsteady. Maybe we can lessen the tension by pushing back at work when “emergencies” arise. How can you explain to work that you will be more affective there if you have some “down time?” Who are some other people that would encourage your desire to take the class and help you to get there? What are the benefits to you if you were in balance with doing those things that you’ve always dreamed about? What would your routine look like once you have adjusted to the new routine? What kind of balance, ease, and steadiness would there be?

The key to any change is to answer the questions and move into it one step at a time. Real changes that make our lives better can be accomplished if we find the small steps that move us toward the goal. By succeeding with the small steps we find a new balance, ease, and steadiness to follow. Before you know it, you’ve moved into a new routine and your life is much better for it. Give yourself the time, be mindful, and keep at it. When you know the reason for why change feels so hard, it gets to feel easier.

Share