We are changing all the time. I look at pictures of myself from years ago and I can see how much I have changed. I look at my sons, now in their twenties, and I can see how much they have changed. Change is life. We live through it every day of our lives.
This daily incremental change is barely noticed until we stop and take a look back. The challenge of change, therefore is change of another type. It's the sudden, massive, and disruptive forms of change that people and organizations need help with quite often.
For example, a car crash. We had a speaker at our church a weekend ago, Paula D'Arcy, who lost her husband and daughter in a car crash in 1975 when a drunk driver hit them head-on in a town in Connecticut.
This was a devastating change for her. Pregnant at the time, she later delivered her second daughter and raised her as a single parent.
As the speaker for our Lenten retreat, she spoke quite movingly about the spiritual journey that this incident triggered. She says that, for several years, she felt as though she was "swimming in darkness," a gloomy time of sadness and anger, a time of deep depression when she couldn't move on with her life.
Last night I watched the movie The Company Men (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172991/) about the aftermath of a corporate downsizing, focusing on how several of the executives (played by Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Craig T. Nelson, Maria Bello, and Tommy Lee Jones) handle the transition that this calamity sets in motion.
In both stories, the talk given by Paula D'Arcy and the film (by director John Wells), important lessons about change emerge. One of those lessons is that there is a third type of change: the change we make intentionally.
After several friends lovingly intervened to help her start to live again, one of Paula's friends introduced her to Norman Vincent Peale. That proved to be a turning point for her. She made the choice to start living again. From that point on, Paula became a spiritual writer and speaker. Today she travels the world as a catalyst for women's voices.
In the film, the main character, played by Ben Affleck, tries to reclaim his former role as a rising sales executive, but finds that the Great Recession is against him. After months of unemployment and many disappointments, including the loss of his house and car, he makes an important choice. He chooses to change. He responds to the invitation (which he had previously turned down) by his brother-in-law (played by Kevin Costner) to work for him, in his home construction business, as a helper.
Humbled by what has happened in his life, grateful for the opportunity to work, and seeking some light in the gloom, he makes a choice and starts his transition.
A word that often comes up in this context is adaptation. "Improvise, adapt and overcome" is the mantra of the US Marines. Leaders ought to know something about "how to do change right." The core competency of leaders should include a deep understanding of the nature of change, how to choose it, and how to lead it.
Warren Bennis once said that leadership is the ability to turn vision into reality. In other words, to lead intentional change.
Posted by Terrence Seamon on Saturday March 24, 2012
Quite like the universality of the theme. Incidental and intentional development, was something I reflect from the time of David A Nadler. Purposeful change requires planning, and not mere managing. The choice of change is invested in conditions where intent and discretion are clarified. That to me comes from a going within to reflect in calm the positive intent of each action. Our own actions, as also those of others who may unintentionally have us feeling hurt ourselves. Acceptance of such trauma as in the examples you've mentioned takes a living through the experiences in full. It is therefore not just a passage of time, but a use of time to become aware of our core purposes and vision - our sense of contribution for which awareness of change follows a personal awakening. thanks for posting, Terrence.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Joseph, for your thoughtful response. Thanks also for retweeting this to your network. As you may know from the email I sent to you, this posting is the seed that will bear fruit into two books that I have in mind, one on Leadership, and one on Change. Together with my first book, To Your Success! (which I self-published in February), I will have achieved a personal goal that I have been reflecting on in my heart for many years. Best wishes to you this day.
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