The multitude of guiding Dos and Don’ts can become overwhelming. The 12 most relevant styles, seven essential skills, nine non-negotiables, 17 key obstacles to overcome, the Top (pick your number and subject) and many more. No doubt, these suggestions are meaningful, do the job, and are founded on solid research.

But they might encourage even more ‚doing‘ to overcome a hurdle that might resolve in a place other than the brain. Even if very selectively chosen, this may end in actioning a personal collection of Top 57 most essentials (count yours!) daily and try to get through them just before lunchtime.

Some might sense added pressure and frame the idea that the lack of reaping results despite significant efforts is their fault. After all, these are suggestions from reliable sources, making it seem like a ‚you-problem‘ and potentially encouraging further mental discovery work to find the ‚right doing‘ to get on par with everyone else seemingly successfully practising. Great!

And if this becomes too much? Meditate! Schedule the initiative to wind down and free the busy mind from overstimulation. Voila! Now, you’re ready to download the program daily.

Wait, is meditating doing nothing? Since when do we get anywhere with doing nothing? Perhaps, we’re onto something here, namely the ‚being‘, mainly who one truly is.

There is no term called ‚human doing‘ but one called ‚human being‘. That was one of the most memorable counsels I have received during various development and coaching programs.

Maybe radically pruning the ‚doings‘ to what one deems resonating with oneself and focusing more on the ‚being‘ may establish a more solid structure for yourself and the business. Prioritising efforts and initiatives to discover who one truly is and how one feels, particularly during a change journey, can go a long way to coping with the process.

The idea known as the paradoxical theory of Change puts it as follows „change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not“. (As this is an Arnold Beisser quotation from the ’70s, I left the pronouns unchanged despite being unfit today). Hence, you become who you are when there is no pressure to change how one wants you to be.

Removing pressure, listening genuinely, providing breathing space for pleasant and unpleasant emotions, and offering companionship during the change process can build a robust foundation for Change. My experience is that winning the hearts of the cautious can outperform the logical co-operators, particularly during a longer-lasting change journey.

There may be already enough brain-stimulating efforts to get people into the right mindset. Maybe worthwhile to create a better balance by increasing efforts to get people into the right ‚heart-set‘ to establish a solid foundation for change readiness.

 

One of the biggest hurdles in implementing Change that sticks is perfectionism. What does perfect even mean? We all use the term, but can people be perfect at all?

I use the term, too, but mainly in another context. I try to cook Spaghetti perfectly ‚al dente‘. Since people are not Spaghetti, I suggest we may not reach the state of perfection, and I certainly know that I cannot.

Maybe people appear to deliver perfect results, responses, presentations, etc., at a specific time, given certain guardrails. But wouldn’t that be the best one can do based on set conditions instead of perfection? Don’t we know by now that one might do better under more favourable conditions (e.g., time, money, resources)?

For many people, coming short of perfect may feel like a failure. And the word failure itself usually does not offer bragging rights, maybe because it turns into one’s identity. Failing to achieve stretched goals does not imply someone ‚being‘ a failure. Aren’t enough articles and research suggesting embracing failure as a part of growth?

Is it truly the failure we cannot endure or the associated emotions that rise with it? I suggest it is the emotions, wherefore we could become strategic in failing and learning how to re-wire our „system“. That way, we could learn to genuinely celebrate the perseverance and other attributes (being) that provide lasting energy to drive progress and growth towards our vision. But how?

Set yourself up for (mostly) failure by putting personal ambitions to an (almost) unattainable level. The ‚most‘ and ‚almost‘ in brackets can help create a healthy balance based on your preferences.

Let me share an example of such re-wiring using gym exercises. With all the devices available to record our movements, steps, etc., we have an excellent opportunity to re-code how we file failure mentally and emotionally.

Grab weights you can barely lift and have the ambition to do as many repetitions of the exercise as possible. Set the goal to burn a given number of calories (e.g. 1,000) within a much shorter time (e.g. 40 minutes) and create a mismatch that puts you on a mission to test your limits. You probably get the idea.

Practising this for over a decade, I have learned to fail every day, no matter how hard I try. What was that good for, though? Well, it helped me ‚prime‘ myself to value attributes (discipline, perseverance, etc.) more than personal goals and instil a passion for progress. And finding out where you plateau and trying to cross the mark can become very energising and rewarding.

That may not be the best approach if one extracts motivation from reaching personal goals. Setting stretched goals may then be a more effective route to take. Ultimately, it is about diverting attention and reward toward many reasons to celebrate, such as progress, discipline, excellence and away from the one only perfect finish line.

As a side effect, you get to know yourself better and learn to compete with no one else than yourself. Furthermore, the terms failure and setback lose their power.

Important to note that I can only appreciate that businesses must define goals (mostly SMART). An essential practice to reach the long-term aspirations and vision of a firm. But that must not influence the work on our personal ‚conditioning“.

We do not have to declare our personal goals to the public and report to shareholders with a stake in your human conditioning. So, why transfer the concept of SMART goals if this is all about finding an approach to help you, just you, deal with your personal and professional life. So, who are you? What concept seems to apply to many but not to you?

As a business owner, imagine how your business would deliver on the SMART goals knowing you have team members who don’t get easily discouraged by setbacks. And if they do, their newly gained swift recovery will speed up change readiness.

 

 

There is enough literature available that refers to us being unfavourably conditioned to happiness and pleasure. We might increasingly seek happiness as instant gratification for our efforts and have potentially gradually unlearned the skill to tough things out and thrive in the face of adversity.

There are other ways to satisfy the desire for instant happiness high. I have adopted a dog who freaks out when returning after every little errand I run. Such a celebration of our pure existence may create the happiness desired instantly! No more delayed gratification of what we want. Problem solved! How did you solve yours?

However, managing an ever-changing business and environment can sometimes get out of the flow and take us on an emotional rollercoaster. And toughing things out can appear unbearable. In this context, isn’t that the very meaning of resilience, the ability to face and endure emotional lows without forcing an escape?

Why not work through these emotional struggles during the change process? Some may experience invalidation during the work through the emotional low due to others‘ feeling the urge to apply their well-meant ‚happy‘ consolation, pep talks, and the persuasion to join the club on the ‚(alleged) better side‘.

There is nothing wrong with well-intended support. However, this may not lead to the ‚liberation‘ desired due to its rapid expiration. It might also not serve to build emotional resilience. On the contrary, its repetitive application may eventually encourage the dismissal of the (supposedly wrong) feeling and fuel further drifting away from ‚being‘ and who one truly is.

Maybe it’s worth trying to endure the lows such as doubt and uncertainty and eventually observe its natural liberation to build resilience. Depending on the intensity of the unpleasant emotions, I suggest seeking ways to recycle them. Many tools and techniques are available to develop and strengthen the ‚invisible muscle‘ of resilience.

Being solely formulaic through sensemaking to chaperon an organisation or oneself to the ’new territory‘ may not be the most effective approach. Instead, address the variety of emotions.

I compare the unpleasant emotions during a change process to holding our breath underwater. Independent of how long we have been under water, some may rise to the surface instantly when panic sets in, while others can endure longer. Most likely, the time spent underwater wasn’t even the limit.

Hence, don’t panic. You may underestimate how well equipped you are in toughing things out naturally. Even stronger if Change management plans accompany the journey and cater to the endurance and stamina needed.

In other words, break the pattern, learn to hold your breath while finding little breathers elsewhere, and support those who need more practice.

My suggestion here may work against a widespread interest because I am not focussing on ‚getting rid of‘ (a feeling). Why do we label feelings or people as ’negative‘ during a change process? How does that help the organisation and us to excel? Wouldn’t it be easier to acknowledge, accept and integrate the ‚polarising‘ perspectives, which may, in effect, serve progress very well?

Yet often, unpleasant feelings and lack of instant cheerful buy-in might seem a downer or a disturbance. Is it a disturbance, though? It’s just polarising views, that’s it. Why not appreciate it? Isn’t the problem rather the obsession with divergent perspectives and emotions that appear unwanted? I believe such focus is the fuel for creating momentum for the „getting rid of“ mentality.

Why not stop the wishful thinking of levitating through life with the least resistance? Instead, learn to seek and embrace divergent input/feedback to generate a 360 picture of the subject at hand, which I believe is essential to sharpen the approach to change. Listening, validating, accepting, and integrating will increase commitment and potentially ignite the passion for the progress.

To make things very clear. Firstly, that is not an encouragement to open the gates to share ‚raw sewage‘ in designated settings. One should always treat people with kindness, dignity and respect and protect the essential boundaries of professionalism.

Secondly, I do not want to ignore that some people might not want to embrace the aspiration and actively try to get in the way, and we must decide to part ways. I would be lying if I hadn’t been in situations where I needed to make such decisions as an executive in the business. However, such frictions may be unrelated to any specific plan. But instead, competence and character become misaligned and turn into a default mode.

Therefore, I suggest integrating instead of trying to ‚get rid of‘. Seek healthy friction to grow as a WHOLE person and together as ONE team and not apart. It is not about consensus and finding the middle ground that may lead to a fainthearted outcome; it is about gaining clarity on trade-offs and accepting them along the journey.

Finally, Changes and Transformations cause turbulences on both ends, the sender and receiver of the change message. Navigating these turbulences solely through sense-making and formulaic approaches will most likely lead to the expiration of the hype latest with a following upcoming change. A more sustainable way forward would be to genuinely accompany people’s journey, holding the space for struggle and the integration of polarising emotions and views.

Considering everything above, I am suggesting a calibration and rebalancing of the ‚human being‘ and the ‚human doing‘ department. Consequently, businesses and individuals could build a lasting structure to take off from plateaued heights more frequently and navigate Change effectively.

This formula serves me very well. What is yours? Please share it with me!

Yusuf