Building Change into your DNA
One of the key’s to success in the 21ste century is the ability to handle change. Not just to survive it, but also to thrive on it. This often means creating change before change creates a different you. It also means managing a system (business, family, individual, etc) in such a way that change is the norm, and when change happens it does not produce discontent or anxiety. This is easy to say, but how do you actually do it when there are people involved, with expectations and different levels of personal acceptance of change?
This is a question I’ll be coming back to you over the next few weeks, and would be interested in what others have to say practically.
Our goal: to build change into the DNA of the individuals and organisations we work with.
For now, though, I’ve been trying to think of examples of where the lack of built-in change has caused major hassles, and produced unhealthy/counter-productive behaviours . Here are some of the ones I can think of. Can you think of more?
Any more examples?
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Perhaps, too obvious, but the fact that our bodies change continuously! Since my waist size has been expanding, the need to accept change in the way I shop for clothes has made a case for constant change.
I think boarding schools and Dr Spock have a lot to account for. I spent 18 years rebelling against an enforced routine that meant I had to do things in a certain way and at a certain time. Woe betide the friends that arrive before your rest time was over, or knock on your door unexpectedly. Or the new secretary that brings tea half an hour before you “should� have it. Do we really need routine? It gives us security, a sense of certainty, but we all know that nothing is certain, and yet we still cling to it, we plan projects and business decisions around it.
That is not to say we don’t need discipline, but routine and discipline are not the same. A routine can give you discipline, but discipline does not need a routine.
How much more could be achieved if we changed our routine to fit in with our environment, rather than our own needs, and how much more secure we would feel if we knew that we were adaptable enough to cope with whatever came our way, especially if it is unexpected.
Maidenmole makes a good point. The only way you know you’re alive is that you’re changing. In nature, a good enough definition of being dead is “not changing”.
I’m never sure if I like Microsoft or not. But their latest ad campaign is interesting. Splashed all over the billboards are pictures people with dinosaur masks, caption reading “Microsoft has evolved. Have you?”. “Software Development” is a verb in the present future tense, present continuous, etc, etc which we need to continuously keep abreast of.