We all manage change
I have learned that I am the 1,000th member of the Change Management Institute. I wonder how many others are initiators of change or have had to manage it. A million? 10 million? Everyone?
We are all engaged in change throughout our lives. From that first moment when you spoke, your first steps as a child, your first encounter with something new. Imagine this.
You are two years old. You are British and your parents are working in the Middle East. You have learned to walk but have not seen grass before. You arrive at a party in a new hotel where the hotel has a lawn. You don’t have a lawn. Outside your cabin where you live you have sand and road. You can see something green and perhaps you have seen someone step onto it. For you this is new territory.
You step down onto the paving and, encouraged gently by your parents, walk towards the lawn. Your foot hovers over the grass and retracts back over the paving. Again it hovers and retracts. And again. Finally you take the plunge; you step onto the grass. And take another step. Now both feet are on the grass, and you take more steps. It feels pleasant. You try to run. You fall. It is soft and does not hurt; you stand up and run again.
This is change. You have entered what for you was the unknown. While the child might not remember this happening, I remember seeing someone do this, their parents watching from the paved area rather than encouraging from the lawn. What can we learn from this?
Change is often depicted using the picture here, a process of rcognising that there is a need for change, denial, acceptance, Crucially the decision to step forwards and make the change id the individual's. In the story it was the child’s. No-one forced them to do it. There was perhaps some external encouragement but the real pressure was from within themselves.
For positive change, the individual must accept the idea and be motivated towards achievement. Is your comfort zone a paved area? Is it time for you to take that step onto the grass? What is stopping you? What will help you to make the change?