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What Questions Are You Asking Yourself?

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Question markQuestions are at the heart of change.

For the individual change practitioner (the coach, the mentor, the therapist), questions are a critical–even the primary–tool.

Organizational change practitioners rely on them as well, though generally not as often.

But what about you if you are the one taking the change journey? What questions are you asking yourself?

I’m not referring to questions like Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening now?  and  so forth.  I am referring to those self-exploration questions that help move you forward on the path.

What are some of those questions? [Read more…]

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Being Eye to Eye With Change

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reflection of men in mirrorWhen was the last time that you looked at yourself in the mirror?

Not the combing your hair, brushing your teeth, checking the make-up, tying the necktie, “how do I look in this” looking in the mirror. Not the take a selfie for Facebook, Instagram, texting looking in the mirror.

The looking at you in the mirror.

The eye-to-eye with yourself looking in the mirror.

The “I really see me” looking in the mirror.

When was the last time you looked in the mirror in that way?

When I ask people that question, the answer is often “when I was a kid,” or “when I was a teen.” Once in a while someone will reference a special event: their wedding day, the birth of a child, or a death. Almost never do I hear “today,” or “this week,” or “it wasn’t too long ago.” [Read more…]

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Change Happens

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iStock_000017918955SmallChange happens. No big insight there. Change happens all the time. Nothing new there. Change happens. Everyone knows that.

Yes, everyone knows that change happens, and that it happens all the time. And yet all too often, we lose sight of that fact and its implications. Today’s post focuses on what “change happens” means to you, and how you might approach change differently in the future. We’ll briefly look at different responses to changes that happen, and the consequences of them. And, we’ll look at how the acknowledgement that change happens can lead you to more successful outcomes.

“There Are Changes I Avoid”

Not every change has to be embraced. In fact, in today’s ever-changing environment, I encourage my clients to avoid any change that is not essential. But that is the tricky part. What is an essential change? [Read more…]

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Overview: Live the New Reality

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24088599_lEach change journey comes to an end. If it has been successful, you will be living the new reality that you defined when you created your change story. In The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau wrote, “The challenge is to learn how to carry over the quality of the journey into your everyday life. The art of pilgrimage is the craft of taking time seriously, elegantly.” With this, my 100th post, I pass on some of the ways I have learned to carry those lessons over. [Read more…]

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Overview: Take the Change Journey

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iStock_000000326591SmallSometimes, “Just do it” is good advice. It may even work with smaller, incremental change. But when faced with a really large change–whether personal or organizational–it is a recipe for disaster.

Over the last few weeks we have looked at what is needed before stepping off on a difficult change journey: Overview: Create Your Change Story, Overview: Prepare for the Change Journey, and Overview: Plan the Change Journey. (Additional posts about these topics can be found by scrolling below each overview.) Today I am addressing some of the key lessons I have learned over the years about the change journey itself. [Read more…]

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Overview: Plan the Change Journey

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15845979_lMan plans, and the gods laugh.

There is a lot that solid planning can do, and much that it cannot. Here are some of the key things that I have learned about change planning over the 40+ years I have been developing–and executing– change-related plans. (For more insights on change planning, see my Plan the Journey blog posts.)

Remember, you have your change story. You have early elements of preparation: you’ve inventoried your anchors; your resources, resource needs, and resource gaps; and the changes you will need to make; you have developed an initial set of milestones. All of these serve as input to your planning process.

Plan for What You Don’t Want!

One of the big mistakes we often make when planning a change is failing to think about what we don’t want to happen. Sometimes we catch the absence of this planning when we come face-to-face with an “Oh, No!” And, sometimes we only discover it after the fact. [Read more…]

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