What is your work goal tomorrow? Is it to stay the same and hope that doing so produces adequate results (assuming your performance exceeds or meets organisational expectations)? Or are you authentically open to change (especially if you know you must improve to meet those expectations)?
Whether you are a leader, follower, manager, or employee what would it feel like to move towards something different and better in the week ahead?
What Lessons Can You Take From The UK Civil Service?
Large organisations, like the UK Civil Service are undertaking change processes, so that its 420,000 plus employees can produce more results with less resources (click on the link to find out more about their leaderships vision; communication; change delivery; and staff engagement). If yours is a smaller organisation, what lessons could you take from the civil service example?
How Immune To Change Are You?
Individuals, just like organisations have different responses to change. Even the mention of change can cause some people to become resistant. Their immunity to change (ITC) depends on the big assumptions they hold. Will colleagues still like me if I change? What will I feel like if I become a more authentic version of myself?
I’m really excited to have learned a lot about the world of change by completing recently a MOOC (massive open online course) on ITC, courtesy of Harvard University. You can listen here to a 15 minute podcast with Robert Kegan who led the course with Lisa Lahey and sample some of the course materials if you register to do so.
Will You Rise To The Change Challenge?
When you set goals for yourself at the start of the year you will have known circumstances might crop up that pushed you off course. As you undertake your mid -year review, what areas do you need to adjust to stay on track?
Perhaps your circumstances have changed so much since January that major adjustments are necessary: in January no one would have foreseen that retail challenges would affect managers at Morrisons for instance; or that in the banking sector, Barclay’s job losses would be followed by those at Natwest
So, whether you are in the UK, US, EU or the world beyond what will you do tomorrow to meet the small or large challenges flagged up by the word ‘change’?
What Else Will You Do To Embrace Change?
Feel free to have a conversation about this topic with your colleagues. I’m always interested to know what you think. You can find me on Twitter @RogerD_said
There are more ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here and on Facebook and Google+ too. Or if you are a Linkedin user you can visit View Roger Dennison’s profile