Howdy Ho FAB and CWAB
You’ve undoubtedly heard
about the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things
that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
These words contain a powerful
truth about the strategy needed to navigate change effectively in life …
meaning, it is a strategy for effective living, because change happens. There
are things that are simply beyond our ability to influence or affect and we
simply need to accept those realities and not be crushed by them. There are
also things that are within our circle of influence and we should focus our
energies in order to affect or influence those. This is an emotionally healthy
mindset.
During a workshop on this subject
that I was conducting a number of years ago, one participant shared with me a
different version of that prayer that resonated very strongly in me:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the people that I cannot change, the courage to change the people
that I can, and the wisdom to know that that’s me!
This is also a powerful
truth. We can’t change anyone else, only ourselves … and so we need to focus
our energies on ourselves when it comes to changing people.
My Dad was more than just
change resistant … he was incapable of change. When the technology in his
workplace changed to the computer age he literally had a psychotic break; it
was more than he could handle … more than he could bear. My Mom helped him
retire on a disability pension and he finished out his days basically as an
insane man … mostly harmless to all but himself … sitting in a delusional world
that he had created to help him emotionally accommodate his dysfunctional
state. Very sad.
Being involved in
leadership at church for so many years I have been put in the position of
leading change … whether such changes were my own idea or they were the ideas
of the full leadership team. I have been in the position of trying to help
others move from HERE to THERE … wherever THERE is. My job as program manager
of the hurricane centre also came with change-leadership requirements. After
more than 30 years of having responsibilities to lead others through change …
and after having read the top dozen or so books ever written on the topic … and
after having taken certification training to be a change-management
practitioner … here is one truth I want to share with you that may help you in
your own leadership efforts (at home, work or in your community):
People care more about
HERE than THERE!
Now bear with me … that
statement may lie somewhere between a cryptic bumper sticker to a line from
Captain Obvious in a Hotels.com commercial. But this is a monumental truth that
make you look like geniuses at leading others once you truly understand it ... so
let’s unpack it a bit.
Almost every book I have
read on leading change talks about the importance of having a clear vision of
the changes you want to make (individually, organizationally, culturally) and
also about the skill needed by leaders to be able to articulate that vision in
a clear and compelling way. The logic is that you need to help people see
exactly where they will end up when they get to the change-destination and
(most importantly) … how great they will feel when they get there. The reason
for the need to clearly articulate how great THERE will be and how great people
will feel when they get THERE is because you know that their elephants (May 25
post if you forgot) are driven 100% by fear and feelings … fear of everything
unknown and feelings that scream yes-to-pleasure and no-to-pain.
The reason that THERE
makes the elephant go wild is that everything about THERE is unknown … so he’s
afraid of all-things-THERE. And in that scary unknown land of THERE he imagines
that none of his pleasures will be present and all of his imaginable (and
unimaginable) pains will be. This is why leadership books teach that a leader
must cast a clear and compelling vision of how great THERE will be when we
arrive … to help allay the fears of the elephant.
Here’s the truth I’ve
learned. If this is all that a leader does to try getting all the elephants to
start moving, he/she will fail abysmally because they will have fallen victim
to a classic leadership error … by focusing all their dialogue around THERE.
Why is this an error? Because THERE is a make-belief land … people live HERE!
Whether you are a trying
to convince your spouse to move to a different city … or trying to convince
your child to tackle a new challenge … or trying to get a group of people ready
for a huge change that is coming to the team/organization that you lead …
before you start talking in any significant way about how great it is THERE,
you first have to demonstrate why remaining HERE is not only a bad idea, it is
actually unconscionable.
People live HERE. And even
when HERE is brutal (like a battered wife living with her abusive husband),
the elephant convinces itself, “well, better the devil you know.” By the way,
that expression, “better the devil you know,” comes from the truth that people
are more afraid of unknown threats than known threats (it has been documented
that if a person enters a room with a large number of people, they will prefer
to sit beside someone they don’t like than beside someone they don’t know).
The future is scary. THERE
is scary. But mostly, HERE is comfortable … or tolerable … and is “most
certainly” better than THERE. It will serve you well to remember this truth
about people that when you try to convince them about the value of a certain
change that you must begin with carefully demonstrating how insanely bad it is
to remain HERE. You must demonstrate that the pain of going THERE pales in
comparison to the pain of remaining HERE. We are strange creatures that pride
ourselves in our logic and rationality, all the while being driven very much by
emotional responses. Don’t get me wrong guys … rational logical thinking is
very much needed, but its use is limited and specific … and always begins with
the logic that the emotions must be dealt with first.
 |
| No matter how bad HERE is, the elephant is keener to stay put rather than try moving to THERE |
There will be times when
THERE isn’t actually an exciting place to talk about … no compelling fantasies
about a fantastic future are possible … all you have to work with is that the
person/group simply can’t remain HERE because HERE has already gone. Some
examples:
- a work environment changes … it’s not an optional future
- a wife loses her husband to a too-early death … he isn’t coming back
- a person loses their job … it’s not a bad dream … the paycheques will stop
- a teen is forced to go to a new school when the parents move to a new city
Until the age of 21, I was
incapable of coping with change. I was my Dad. Nobody ever helped me understand
that change is inevitable and moving forward to THERE wasn’t an option. It
would have been nice to have some coaching about how THERE wasn’t as scary as I
thought and that HERE sometimes sucked if I looked at it honestly.
When it comes to change …
it’s all about HERE. I hope that you become skilled at helping people (starting
with yourself) learn to honestly deal with HERE so that they can move to THERE.
Why? Because 100% of every human-being’s future is in the land of THERE.
Adaptive-capacity
is the supreme human aptitude.
I love you guys.
Dad
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