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Every Change Has an Expiration Date

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I remember my first personal computer; it was a state-of-the-art dual floppy disk PC manufactured by IBM. In order to run spell-check I had to swap one of the disks out to put in the spell-check disk; my recollection is that there were 10 or more disks for the word processing program. The printer required a special Plexiglas hood that was lined with eggshell crate foam to help manage the noise. At the time many office workers were still on electric typewriters or dedicated word processing machines. That was 1983.

In 1990 I bought my own personal laptop; it was an upgraded model with 20 MB of storage. If I still had it today, that laptop wouldn’t even hold one of the photographs I now take with my digital mirrorless 35mm camera. Part of this post was written on a 120 GB iPad while sitting in a park enjoying the sunshine; it was uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded to a PC when I got home.

In 2004, 90% of American households had landlines; today that number is less than 50%. I am old enough to remember the evolution from 78’s, to 33-1/3’s and 45’s (for my younger readers, all forms of musical records); to eight-track and cassette tapes; to CD’s; to the first iPod, which Steve Jobs boasted was “designed to hold 1,000 songs.” Even that feels outdated today.

Every change has an expiration date. [Read more…]

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A Few Reminders: Key Change Principles

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Abstract blueWith 93 posts focused on successfully executing your most difficult changes, a lot of territory has been covered in this blog. For an old student of change like me, keeping track of all the insights is in my DNA, but for most of my readers and those I work with, it can get overwhelming. To provide you with a quick reference, the next several posts are going to focus on providing an overview of the change journey, as well offering some critical reminders for each aspect of the trip. You can use the search function (or contact me) for additional information on any of the topics I cover.

Today I will focus on some key principles underlying every major change. Starting next week, we will review a model for the change journey. [Read more…]

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Tear Down the Walls!

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iStock_000004285206SmallWe act like there is work, and there is our other (some call it our “real”) life. In this scenario, events that occur in one have nothing to do with the other. The reality, however, is very different.

Much like the Berlin Wall, the walls that we so often try to put up between different parts of our lives are not impervious. They may help to conceal things for awhile. They may allow us to [Read more…]

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Dream the Impossible.

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iStock_000004817114verysmallI spent this weekend fostering dreams. No, I wasn’t working in a sleep-deprivation lab… I was facilitating an intent workshop for a client. They are a small nonprofit, founded to memorialize and honor the victim of a hate crime. In their early years, they focused on creating a physical memorial (a bench with a plaque) in his name, and provided victim services. They testified on behalf of hate crime legislation. Everything was done by volunteers. Most of them moved on. The organization languished.

However, one person kept the spark alive. He knew the work wasn’t done. He wasn’t ready to let the memory fade, or the underlying causes of the attack be left unchallenged. He still feels the pain of loss, the shock of a friend dead because of who he was.

He struck on an idea: produce children’s videos that address issues of difference and acceptance. He found a college teacher who was willing to make this a class assignment. An educator offered insights into key elements of the content. Students storyboarded, presented, and produced two videos.

Now, where do they go from here? [Read more…]

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Listen to Henry Ford…

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untitledToday’s post is more personal than most. It is a story about my son, Brandon, and holds an important lesson for each of us.

As you may recall from an audio post I made to my blog last year, Resilience Is Critical When Facing Challenge, Brandon is adopted. I first met Brandon when he was 15 years old. He reached out to request an interview for a photography project he was doing in school. He had to write the biography of his favorite photographer and, he told me, “I Googled gay photographers, and you’re my favorite.”

During the course of the interview Brandon learned a bit about me, and I learned a bit about him. Most importantly, I learned that he was living in an abusive home environment, and attending a school where he was getting assaulted on a regular basis. Moreover, he didn’t have an adult figure in his life that he could turn to for guidance, and whom he could trust. I offered him the opportunity to stay in touch, and he accepted.

As time went on, I learned that at home Brandon was told that because he is gay, he would never amount to anything, that he would end up living on the streets. School was not much better. Students would stand outside in the morning, praying for him. A teacher once asked whether he was ever going to “get better.” And he was told he would end up as a hairdresser or florist.

When I first began talking with Brandon about his future, he was already committed to moving beyond the “guidance” he was receiving from others; he had identified a one-year photography trade school that he hoped to attend. As a sometime photographer who knows how difficult it is to make a living that way, I encouraged him to think in terms of “both/and.” What would he like to study in addition to photography?

By the time Brandon graduated high school, he had been thrown out of his home, and I had taken him in. He had been accepted into a five year BA/BFA program at The New School in New York City, with plans to major in psychology (BA) and photography (BFA). Midway through his sophomore year, he made the decision to discontinue the photography major, and focus fully on psychology.

The next year he applied for, and was admitted to, a BA/MA program. This program allowed him to take graduate-level courses his junior and senior years, and granted him provisional admission to continue on for his masters degree without going through the traditional GRE and admissions process. His senior year courses would also be credited toward his MA. This fall, Brandon was notified that he was admitted to graduate school at The New School. Last month he completed his BA; while he doesn’t yet have all of his grades for the semester, his final undergraduate GPA will be in the vicinity of 3.9. At the end of this month he begins his final year of the MA program, majoring in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling. And, over the winter break, he has begun training as a professional mediator.

The journey has not been easy for Brandon. If he had believed in the future that others predicted for him, he may never have even reached out to me. But he shut out those voices in favor of his own. And, despite the negativity of so many people in the first eighteen years of his life, Brandon is creating a positive future for himself…one in which he will be helping others to believe in themselves as well.

Brandon hadn’t heard this quote of Henry Ford’s until well along in his journey. Nonetheless, he has shown us all how true it is. “If you think you can do a thing, or you think you can’t, you are right.”

As you move through the challenges of the new year, think you can!

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“What Would Steve Do?”

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iStock_000015325710SmallSome of us have trouble figuring out and committing to a path forward. The reasons are varied. We may not have all the facts we think we need. We may not be certain that we can get those whose support we want on board. We may feel uncomfortable with making decisions in general, or this decision in particular.

It is then that we all too often turn to someone else (a consultant, a coach, a therapist, a friend…) and say, “What would you do?” As a professional coach, I hear it all the time.

When I hear this question, I often think of a quote from Matsuo Basho: Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, seek what they sought.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the question. It is a way of gaining different perspectives, especially if you are asking a diverse group of people who bring different backgrounds and experiences to the table. What does this look like through a financial lens, through a magnitude of change lens, through a market lens, through a feasibility lens? What does it look like through an interpersonal lens, through a spiritual lens, through a personal alignment lens?

Ask the question. Gather the insights. Weigh them.

It’s what all too often happens next that concerns me. Sometimes the decision is to not decide; there are too many divergent perspectives to commit to a path forward. Sometimes, it becomes a “hop scotch” of trying one thing for a bit, then jumping to the next, waiting to find something that seems to stick. And, sometimes we have someone else to blame if the chosen direction or actions don’t work out. “John got it wrong.” “Steve put us on the wrong path.” “How could Hannah have been so off?”

The truth is simple. If it is your change, you need to own your decisions. You need to own the correct ones. And, you need to own the incorrect ones. You ask John, Steve, and Hannah because they are bringing something to the assessment that you don’t have. None of them has everything you bring to the table either; none of them own the change in the way you do. You shouldn’t be asking them if you suspect they may give you bad advice, intentionally or otherwise. But what you are getting is advice, not instruction. If you choose to go forward with it, that is your choice, not their responsibility.

As Basho suggests, don’t follow in their footsteps, follow in their wisdom. If it will be helpful, go ahead and ask “What would Steve do?” Then have the courage and strength to make the decision, and to hold yourself accountable for the consequences.

How do you request–and respond to–counsel from others? Comment below.

 

 

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