To recap, the top 7 mistakes I’ve noticed after 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders are:

1) Planting your idea in barren soil
2) Planting the wrong kind of seed
3) Not enough watering and fertilization
4) No stays
5) Letting the bugs and weeds take over
6) Lack of pruning
7) Letting it go to seed

In my upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, I will explore each of these mistakes via case studies and how the mistakes made became the grounding agents that led to the successful adoption of new habits.

The first is trying to plant your seed of change in barren soil. Another way to look at it is an over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth. According to cellular biologist and PhD, Bruce Lipton, most organisms operate in either protection mode or growth mode but cannot be operating in both modes at the same time. An organism (or an organization) that continually focuses on safety and protection cannot grow. Many change leaders won’t or cannot launch a change because the individuals (and thus the organization as a whole) get stuck in fight or flight mode far too often. This leaves no resources left over for growth. Here is a short 2 minute video in which Bruce Lipton explains the concept of protection vs growth:

How big is your organizational defense budget?

If decision makers in your organization have an unresolved trauma around change, then you will need to address this before you propose a growth tactic. While some amount of protection is useful to ensure survival, a large number of organizations have allocated most of their resources in that direction since the economic downturn. You can also see this phenomenon play out at the national level when a country overspends on defense and under-spends on areas that could help society grow such as the arts, research, education and social programs.

What is the mind set governing your organization?

The first step to this process is to get into the habit of testing the soil into which you want to plant your seed of change. It must have the right Ph balance of protection versus growth. Individuals must also maintain the right Ph balance in order to stay healthy. Think of the last time you felt stressed. It was probably because you perceived that your “safety” was at stake. The brain will more exclusively operate from the Reptilian Complex, or the fight or flight brain, not just when you feel physically at risk but also when you risk losing anything you care about: job, relationship; reputation, income, comfort, security, pride, etc. While in this state of mind your body will focus the majority of resources on surviving; running away or fighting. You have thus lost resources normally used for maintaining your immune system or for healing or detoxifying the body. If you stay in that fight or flight state for too long then you will likely experience some kind of disease.

Symptoms of organizational dis-ease

Similarly if an organization (or the collective energy of the individuals within it) perceive that its “safety” is at risk for too long then disease can set in. Organizational disease can take the form of customer complaints, office politics, system break downs, or employee attrition. Organizational dis-ease (or lack of ease) can then beget more disease as resources must be used to cover for people who are ill, to find a replacement for someone who quits, to mediate office politics, or to recover from a customer complaint. Boosting your organization’s “immune system” by balancing protection with growth can make all the difference. This allows more resources for areas such as system upgrades, team building, adding new positions, market research or product development. The first step is to uncover the underlying mind set governing your organization or company. Ask yourself right now: what is the balance between protection versus growth?

Two different perceptions of the same situation

It’s easy to see that you could choose a different perception by looking at how two different people react to the same situation. One person may perceive a move from one building to another as a horrible discomfort causing them sleepless nights. This perception came from a decision they probably made sometime in the past and which now colors their possible future. These decisions can always be changed. Another person might see the same move as an opportunity to de-clutter their work area, get to know new people, and be refreshed by a change of environment. What we perceive affects our experience which in turn affects our biology, which in turn affects our performance, and by association those we work with and those our organization serves. In further blog posts I will explore some of the more popular methods of re-mapping your brain around change–or making new decisions that will create less stressful perceptions.

Case Study: W.L. Gore & Associates

Here is a short case study about a company that has a good balance between protection and growth. After rigorous evaluation Fast Company magazine finally voted W.L. Gore & Associates as the most innovative company in America a few years back. You’ve no doubt heard of its most famous product: Gore-Tex fabrics, which have a transparent plastic coating that makes them waterproof and windproof but keeps them breathable. They also make over 1000 different other products such as synthetic blood vessels, Glide dental floss, the first floss that resisted shredding, and the Elixir guitar strings, which last five times longer than normal strings.

Gore is known for being as innovative in its operating principles as it is in its diverse product lines. For example, they create sustainable growth by making people feel safe to take risks. Since they are a privately owned company they don’t have to report their quarterly earnings, thus they happily allocate 10% of their resources to new initiatives and allow anyone in the company who wants to try a new initiative a generous amount of resources to develop it. Of course, some of those initiatives fail, but they expect that. And, when Gore people pull the plug on a failing initiative, they’ll still have a “celebration” with beer or champagne, just as they would if it had been a success. Because they know that lowers stress and validates trying new things and thus helps the whole company continue to grow.

What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of value system?

You may be asking “What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of mind set or value system—what can I do?” You don’t need to be the head of a company to influence these kinds of changes. The Change Artist Principles is designed to help people at any level of an organization see ways to make a difference. Stay tuned for further posts.

Why the Gallup Q12 may now be an exercise in futility
For the key to employee engagement, all you need to do these days is to look to the Gallup Organization, right? They conducted hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, and came up with the Q12. This is a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement.

You can see a list of the 12 questions here.

But what if you can’t live up to standards of the Q12? Certainly managers who care about you, encourage you, mark your progress, value your opinions and allow you to learn and grow—all contribute to employee engagement. But, for many that is a radical new approach to management. What if you can’t find or train those kinds of people overnight? Plus, many people don’t know what is expected of them at work because the economy keeps changing, or the industry keeps changing. Employees may not have the materials and equipment they need for the same reasons. Maybe you can’t do “what you do best” at work every day, because “what you do best” has now become obsolete. Or, you can’t do quality work, because the market turn around time has significantly decreased. In short, trying to keep up with the Q 12 may now be an exercise in futility.

So you can’t feel engaged until the rate of change slows down?
If so, you might as well drop out of the rat race now and live in a cave. The only way out of this dilemma is to adopt new habits to deal with change. Due to profound economic, sociological, and demographic changes, we must evolve at a core level. In Seth Godin’s bestseller, “Survival Is Not Enough”, he states that “Most of us view change as a threat, and survival as the goal. The first step to help yourself and your organization thrive in the coming economy is to eliminate the anti-change reflex that’s genetically coded into all of us. Once a company learns to zoom (embrace change without pain), it’s much more likely to evolve.”

Creativity as the key to employee engagement
What Seth Godin is referring to when he says “zooming” is a form of creative thinking that is available to everyone. It is bundled with our bio-computer hard drive. We just need to learn how to use it more often. The problem with the Q12 is that the burden of employee engagement mostly lies on the shoulders of management. The truth is, many managers are even less engaged than their employees. How are they possibly going to inspire their workforce? The antidote to almost all Q12 is to teach people how to zoom, at all levels of an organization. The lowest level of creativity inspires far more vitality in a person than the highest level of consuming. In other words, if you can create a workplace full of creative thinkers who share enough of the same core values, the engagement happens all on its own.

Dissolving negativity at work
Countless times, we have seen office politics dissolve; complainers become supportive; toxic emotions unexpectedly evaporate, and unethical people suddenly have integrity when an organization gets back in the creative flow. In other words, it learns how to zoom. Yet, we’d like to take it one step further. It needs to be creativity tied in to core organizational values; otherwise you can end up like Enron (innovation run amok because it lacks integrity). What we’re talking about here is zooming with integrity, or what I call being a Change Artist. To build a Change Artist organization is to create clear values and then teach enough people key habits that naturally unlock the creative thinking necessary to live those values. Once there is a high enough “vibe” of creativity, the permission for it, and the responsible demonstration of it, the Change Artist virus spreads. Others can pick it up by osmosis.

Do you have a comment?
Feel free to add your opinion to this post. For more tips, or to learn about Carla Rieger’s organizational programs, consulting and other resources go to www.artistryofchange.com.

Just get a new job, start a business, train in a new career, come up with a new product or service, find a different kind of customer, create a new business model and so on.

Fear of death

The reality of re-inventing yourself, however, can be immensely difficult because of several issues, one of which rarely gets talked about. That issue is the fear of death. It sounds strange, but some psychologists say that all fear can be traced back to fear of death. In the context of reinvention this would be about death of the personality or the existing identity or structure and the familiarity of the status quo.

Without death there can be no creativity in life

We are genetically programmed to enter into an intense state of fear at the thought of our demise or anything we are attached to. Yet, the Buddhists say that without death, there can be no joy in life, no creativity. Or as Mary Catherine Bateson said at the BRC in February: “We need to be able to walk into the forest and see that all of its beauty is intertwined with the process of death feeding back into the life of the forest.”  David Whyte talks about it eloquently in this video, that death or destruction of the old is a necessary part of the artistic tradition. And, if we are the artists of our lives, our work, and our businesses it helps to periodically let go of the old.

Every now and then, though, you get an interesting piece on what’s good.

For many people it has been hard not to feel discouraged. However, one habit of a Change Artist is to reframe a challenge from many perspectives.  Be wary of getting seduced into the perspective of the masses; you may be missing out on opportunities. As Ford Saeks says, “There is no lack of money, there is only a lack of good ideas.”

Below is a short list of what’s good for some people. These facts below came from personal stories shared by our clients, plus the following articles and books:

(you can check these resources out at the links below)

• Recession can change a way of life
• Recession is good for you?
• The Good Recession
  
The Myth of the Great Depression

The Top 10

1. Not working?

People who are working less may have less stress and a more balanced life, enjoying more exercise, more time with family and friends, and more time for reflection.

2. Still working but with less resources?

Limitations ironically spark more creativity because people have to think in new ways to solve old problems. More creativity in turn tends to make people feel more vital and alive.

3. Can’t go to the mall so often?

People are more likely to break their addiction to consumer goods during a recession perhaps finding out for themselves that indeed “the best things in life are free”.

4. Can’t afford to drive?

People tend to drive less during a recession so there are fewer accidents and people tend to also get more exercise.

5. Need a new life?

During a recession more people go back to school or reinvent their lives in new ways that can feel more meaningful and exciting.

6. Can’t go fine dining?

More people eat at home, which means they eat more simply. They eat less rich foods and tend to lose more weight.

7. Feeling like you need help?

People tend to reach out more often for help from friends, family or professional counselling, which makes them feel more connected to their community.

8. Can’t afford the complications anymore?

People tend to re-prioritize and sell off things they don’t really need or use, creating less complication and clutter and more simplicity in their lives.

9. Noticing who really matters?

People tend to get more committed to their relationships when times are tougher, and often feel more love and enjoyment towards those in their inner circle.

10. Your society not working for you?

On the macro level, downturns tend to activate large, sweeping social change whereby priorities tend toward taking care of each other much more than in a booming economy. Also, more people volunteer their time for charities which makes them feel better at having made a difference.

Feel free to post your comments here on my blog.

I want to hear your own reframe on what’s good, or any other point of view you’d like to share.

1. What’s Good? Ask yourself “What’s Good?” about challenges such as the economic downturn (e.g. It’s a chance to simplify, de-clutter and re-prioritize). This will give you a better mindset. After all, as Einstein said “you cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.”

2. Act as if: Ask yourself, “If I were exceptional… at being financially sustainable in this economy I would…” (e.g. I would download for FREE Seth Godin’s eBook Tribes and read about how to thrive in the coming economy).

3. Take action: Then take one small action today based on your ideas from Step #2.