Everyone needs to change something. The problem is, we just don’t know how.
Our bosses, boards of directors, spouses, doctors, friends, and even our pastors, priests, or rabbis all tell us we need to change. Sometimes they can even get us excited about the possibilities and make us genuinely want to change. But when the excitement wears off, we’re back to the same place all over again.
How do we actually change our lives?
What are the steps we need to take to make a difference and start over again?
How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?
That’s what this book is about. I’m not interested in getting you “amped up,” excited, or in a frenzy to change. Lots of books can do that—but when the excitement is over, you’re left in the same rut as before.
This book is different from anything you’ve ever read. I’m going to show you step-by-step how to change your life or your organization (or both) in the context of today’s disrupted world. It’s far more than a simplistic self-help book, but on the other hand it’s not a complex business book filled with jargon, diagrams, and intricate strategies that only a PhD could understand. The bottom line is that whatever the problem, challenge, or obstacle you face—or how chaotic or overwhelming your life may be—I believe the unique approach in this book will help you take the concrete steps to jolt your life and make real change happen.
Stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the change.
Once it happens to you, it can happen to everyone around you. Thirty years of making change happen in organizations across America has taught me that companies and organizations don’t change until people change.
» YOU DON’T CHANGE ORGANIZATIONS WITHOUT CHANGING PEOPLE.
It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
—GEORGE ELIOT, AUTHOR
I work in the media industry, where I see many who originally dreamed of being writers, actors, directors, or producers discover the difficulty of making those dreams come true. In Los Angeles, sometimes it seems as if every waiter, bookstore clerk, or bank teller is really an actor looking for his or her big break.
The truth is, people from all walks of life are desperate for change. When Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” he was talking about the difficult search for change and the sad truth that most people have simply given up on the possibility.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
—MAHATMA GANDHI
I’ve spent my career working with organizations that have hit a wall. I get the call when their product sales are flat, audience response has fallen, or their markets have evolved. But it took me years to discover that my real calling is shaking up people’s thinking and making change happen.
As a result, I become a “spark” or a “catalyst” that changes leaders’ perspectives and, hopefully, transforms their approach to business. I help them through the difficult process of change, in order for them to stay competitive and keep up with evolving trends, customers, and audiences.
I’ve been doing this for decades, and early on I realized it wasn’t an organizational problem—it was a people problem. Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the first Palm handheld PDA, said, “Companies don’t innovate, people do.” Certainly many organizations have outdated policies, rules, and processes that need to be updated. For many, it has become a culture of monotony—the assumed way that employees are supposed to react, think, and process issues. But the fact is, all organizations are driven by people, and I’ve discovered that if you just look hard enough, you’ll find those crazy policies, outdated rules, and cultural problems all began with a person, and it’s people who continue to breed that type of thinking.
So I turned my focus away from the organizations themselves and more toward the people who lead them.
That research and study resulted in the journey that you’re beginning. It can’t be denied: change is hard.
It’s difficult to do well, and it’s even harder to develop a lifestyle of change. As I’ve developed this process, marketing teams, creative teams, and even church groups have worked through the process with amazing results.
Either way, if you can master these relatively simple techniques, you can discover the infinite promise that change can bring into your life and into your organization.
It’s time to look forward.
As Leonard Sweet said in SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture: “The Dick-and-Jane world of my ’50’s childhood is over, washed away by a tsunami of change. Some technologies function as deluges that sweep all before it; some technologies are most like winter storms that swell the rivers of change. Electronics is the former. It has created a sea change such as the world has never experienced before”(17).
Leonard Sweet was right. A revolution of change is not only moving forward, but it is gaining momentum. Talking backstage at a national conference years ago, I proudly told him that our generation grew up writing letters, but we’ve recognized the need to change, so we switched to e-mail. But he laughed and reminded me of our children, who believe e-mail is far too old-fashioned (it’s really just an electronic version of a letter) and not “instant” enough for a new generation.
Change never stops.
THE CRIPPLING POWER OF DENIAL
What is now proved was once impossible.
—WILLIAM BLAKE, POET
What do most people do in the face of disruption and chaos?
Most ignore it.
