Archive for Change
Can a Person Make Real Change?
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Copyright (c) 2008 Dorothy Tannahill Moran
That’s a great question. At some point in your life, you have witnessed in yourself and perhaps others, attempts at making changes to their life which simply didn’t “take”. The range of changes is everything from losing weight to ending a bad relationship or smoking.
Whatever the example, we have all had an opportunity to experience what seemed like good attempts but for some reason, the good attempt failed. It can leave one to wonder if, at some point, we become too solidified in various behaviors to really change.
Let me set this stage by first saying: yes, we can and do make real changes all the time. I need to add that there is a bit of a process to it, but it’s not rocket science so it’s all available for us to do.
I usually end with a Pearl of Wisdom but on this topic this needs to be said upfront. If you are considering changing someone else: don’t. You only have control over yourself. You will only frustrate yourself and tick off the other person if you make them the focus of YOUR desire to change THEM. You need to work on acceptance, but that’s another article.
The process for change starts first with positioning yourself to find the need and desire to make a change. It’s like what you hear about addictions, you first must recognize you have a problem before you can start doing anything about it. Along with the recognition of the issue itself, you need to spend time truly analyzing how it impacts your life. You or someone needs to ask the tough questions like: How does this get in the way of accomplishing things you want to do? What would your life be like if this issue didn’t exist? How DOES this impact your life? It’s not enough to say “I’m over weight and I know I shouldn’t be”. You need to know at your core why it really is an issue. For this process step to be useful in spurring you on to action, you may need to research the issue by reading or talking to people. This is not a waste of time. Too often people will take a run at changing an issue, before they feel any real need to make the change. When it doesn’t work, they walk away wondering why or maybe rationalizing that “I knew it wouldn’t work”. Once you truly have internalized the need to make a change, it will help drive you forward to the next steps. Read More→
Making Workplace Change Happen in Six Steps
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Many organizations muddle through change. How is your organization progressing at implementing that new accounting system or moving to a new employee performance management process?
Are your managers nodding approval in public but sabotaging the initiative in private? Are your employees shell-shocked and just giving up? Do you have no money left over for post-implementation support?
Whatever change your organization is trying to implement, knowing about and working through the necessary steps will go a long way to making your change initiative a success.
I have distilled these crucial steps into a process model for change. The model is called the CHANGE Approach, with each letter signifying a step in the process. I have summarized below the key features of each step leading to a successful change transition.
Create tension
With this first step, articulate why change needs to happen and why it needs to happen within the planned timeframe. Many change programs start with a big bang, but then peter out ending in a whimper. Other programs struggle to develop the initial momentum. Think about the immediate force that will get your people moving in the right direction. This could be impending legislative changes, new entrants to the market, high levels of customer dissatisfaction, etcetera. Think also about the impacts of not changing, such as loss of market share or fines from regulators. To prepare your company for the impending objections, collect as much data as you can to back your assertions. Read More→
Why People Resist Change
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You are in the midst of implementing an important change in your organization and find not everybody is rallying around you. Some of the people you need are not translating their words into action or have refused outright to support your change effort. The executive sponsor who liked the idea of being aligned with a high profile, cutting-edge technology change program has failed to deliver the program budget he promised you.
Or the implementation of the performance bonus system designed to lift the take-home pay of low paid process workers has not convinced them to adopt the new system. You thought that you had hit people’s hot buttons and can’t understand their reluctance to support your change efforts. You now need to develop a deeper understanding of the motivators that drive the people in your organization.
Let’s consider more closely the performance bonus example mentioned above. In this case, process workers were promised a 5% increase in their pay if they increased the number of assemblies they produced by 30% over a one-month period. Bonuses were to be calculated and distributed based on each individual’s output for the month. The increase in productivity was only possible if the process worker learned and used the new computer controlled production machine. Read More→
Tis’ the Season for Change
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Deciding what changes need to be made may be the easy part. Communicating the change, and obtaining leadership and employee buy-in may be the greater challenge. With all the change that businesses face, you might think that organizations would know how to handle change and do it well.
What Do Statistics Show?
HR Magazine says that, according to a report by IBM entitled The Future of Banking, this is not the case. The report indicated that, even though the industry expected radical (emphasis mine) change, managing it was quite a different story.
15% said they were very successful at managing change.
32% said they were successful.
33% said they had some success.
15% said they had little to no success.
Research by the Corporate Strategy Board of Arlington, VA, agrees that change is not handled well by organizations, citing a 50% failure rate.
The banking industry is far from being alone in the churn of change. The hospitality industry has also endured its share of change because travel is one of the first perks given up in hard times.
“Going green” has become a mantra for business and citizens, but even it has experienced change in the form of lower prices in areas of recyclables.
Given the changes of the past year in the economy, politics and environment, organizations would do well to understand how to better decide, communicate and implement needed changes. Read More→
Implementing Change
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Step 1 – The Change Think Tank – Planning
Think & Reflect. The first step in implementing change is to stop and think before taking action. Sometimes the natural reaction for a business owner is to jump straight in and make immediate radical changes.
This rarely works. It’s best to block some time to plan the change either by locking yourself away at work for a few hours or actually driving to a neutral venue (park, cafe etc) away from your business premises. You need an unbroken focus to plan for change without interruption.
Map out your Initial Changes. Document a first draft of your changes. This should just be a summary and doesn’t need to look pretty. Make sure you jot down the steps required and likely timing. Note any major gaps or barriers that need to be considered in implementing the plan. Draft an initial time line you believe is achievable and a working deadline for implementation.
Seek input from Stakeholders & Advisors. Now you’ve drafted your plan alone, it’s time to discuss this with other stakeholders and advisors. Seek input from your stakeholders which include business partners, management, key employees and customers/suppliers (if applicable). Ask for feedback from your trusted advisors where appropriate. Ask them to be open and frank. Listen intently and don’t get defensive. Adopt a collaborative approach to planning for change. Read More→
Influence Without Authority
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- ISBN13: 9780471463306
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In organizations today, getting work done requires political and collaborative skills. That’s why the first edition of this book has been widely adopted as a guide for consultants, project leaders, staff experts, and anyone else who does not have direct authority but who is nevertheless accountable for results.
In this revised edition, leadership gurus Allan Cohen and David Bradford explain how to get cooperation from those over whom you have no official authority… More >>
Are You a Change Champion?
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Think back to a time when you were really excited about something that was changing.
Maybe it was a new initiative at work or in your community, or a new idea for your family. It can be anything at all that you were excited about and anxious for the change or innovation to take place or for the new idea to be implemented.
It doesn’t matter if what you are thinking about is current, recent or “ancient history” or whether it`s work related or in your personal life.
Have you got a situation in your mind?
Great!
When you were living with that change and believed in the value of that change, what did you do?
My guess is that you: Read More→
Public Speaking for Shy or Private People
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Learning public speaking is like learning to ride a bike. All you need is some initial courage and a sense of balance. Then you have to change gear as appropriate. Once you’ve progressed that far you simply learn when to put on the brakes.
Most of us have suffered from listening to poor public speakers. We’ve squirmed as they’ve gone on endlessly saying the same thing in a dozen boring ways. Most of us too have admired brilliant speakers and wished we too could captivate an audience. At the very least most of us would like to express our views in public without losing our courage not to mention our voices.
The thing most public speakers have in common is simply a fear of making fools of themselves. They may be college students who have to study rhetoric as part of their schooling. In adult life those who attend may be budding politicians, trade union activists or aspiring business people. There may also usually be a few shy singles and some married couples sharing a new experience in communications. However interesting the mix they don’t usually expect to start the class with breathing exercises. Read More→
Here’s Why I think We’re at The Bottom
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I have a newsreader (the thing that acts like a newspaper but with blog posts). I regularly follow approximately thirty different real estate and mortgage related blogs. If you follow my twitter posts, nearly half of them are about the content of these real estate blogs.
Over the past year, almost all the blog posts have been bad news.
- Pricing drops in nearly all geographic areas
- Substantial home builders filing for chapter 11
- Stories about massive foreclosures
- Tales of woe, misery and pain
My conversations with my colleagues and network contacts were dismal and depressing
About a month ago this started to change. Certainly there are still numerous examples and stories about the down economy, but I began to notice bog posts and news stories that I have not seen in quite a while.
Here are some of these posts just from last week:
Sales of Existing Homes Rise, Fueled by Tax Credit – Builders Online Blog
New-Home Sales Rise 4.7% in February – Builders Online Blog
Signs of Recovery – Homes Sales Insights Blog
Signs of Life in California Real Estate – CNN Money Blog
WHAT’S THIS?!? Phrases such as, “Rise”, “Recovery”, “Signs of Life” in blogs posts? Prior to this week, I had not seen blogs posting with these words.
Are there problems? Absolutely, most of the blogs are still talking about the problems, however there bits and slivers of positive things are starting to creep into blog posts.
And I have seen more of it in the past week than in the past year.
Do we have a still more to go? Yup.
Do I think were at the bottom? Yup.
Related articles by Zemanta
- More Information That The Housing Market has Reached Bottom (movephilly.blogspot.com)
- Pending Home Rise 2.1 Percent in Feb. From Jan. (abcnews.go.com)
- Can These Positive Trends Continue? (hsh.com)
- Are the Home Buyer Tax Credits Working? (usnews.com)
- Real Estate News Continues to Improve (hsh.com)
- Lyon Homes says stimulus is working (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
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This Is Not My First Post
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Well, technically it is for this new blog, but I have other blogs and have written many posts.
But I am glad to have made the switch to Wordpress. I bit off more than I could chew with my previous site.
I wanted to have tons of functionality, forums, plugins, components, automation. You name it, I wanted it for my site. So I settled on Joomla, the massive content management system that offers everything you could want in a site (including a HUGE learning curve). Unfortunately, with all those bells and whistles you need LOTS of administrative focus and time to make it work.
Over the space of a year, I built several sites with Joomla. And the work ballooned. And the sites grew. Don’t get me wrong, they were terrific sites, but I was wondering whether I needed to hire an IT staff to keep up with it.
So I bit the bullet and switched to Wordpress. Does it have all the massive functionality of Joomla, not really. Did I need all the massive functionality, no, not at all. Actually Wordpress gives me all I need and then some. Joomla gave me all I needed and WAY more. I just need what Wordpress gives me.
That’s a life lesson I continuously need to follow – start with what you need, add from there.
- Joomla Vs Wordpress (articlesbase.com)
- Building Your Location Independent Online Business: Should You Build A Blog Or A Static HTML Website? (locationindependent.com)
- Forum: How To Choose The Right Web Publishing Tool (teemingmedia.com)
- Wordpress.tv broadcasts tutorials and Wordcamp reports (thenextweb.com)
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