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Welcome to all new subscribers who have joined us over the last fortnight - do check out earlier issues of this ezine - we keep the last couple of months issues online here

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If you haven't already, do check out the:

8 FREE Introductory Lessons from the Practitioners Masterclass - HERE

For a much better viewing experience, all lessons are now in PDF format.

Watch out for the very special announcement at the end of lesson 8!

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I took the red pill...

Regular readers of this ezine will be familiar with my "sounding off" about the lack of real connection in the "content snacking" of so much online communication.

I plead guilty too.

I realise that now.

I have been resistant about too much self disclosure about expressing too much of what I really feel, preferring to take refuge in words and ideas, articles and interesting links.

It's partly an age and background thing - I'm 56 and British people of my age, social and ethnic background are "naturally" reticent.

This isn't the Oprah show, but I'm going to do it anyway, cos I want to take this ezine to another level - I feel that this is good way to encourage more connection and dialogue here...

So as a first step, I've put up a personal profile of sorts (in front of my business profile). Check it out - there's a little bit more about me as a person, and some fabulous views of our wonderful coastline down here by the sea - plus a music track I mixed for a segment of a series of radio shows I did a few years ago.

As a second step, and perhaps more to the point, I'm gonna make this ezine more personal, more reflective, go deeper, go beyond the "management" aspects of change and more into the stuff that's not always so obvious - but taps into more of what's really going on.

The "meat and potatoes" change management stuff will always be here, it is very necessary, but there will be other stuff as well.

I am not talking just about organisational change management here - but the deeper aspects of change - the bits that sit behind what's really going on - the bits that are "out of view"...

As someone once said:

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate"

Or, think of "The Matrix" for a visual analogy.

Truth is, I really have been "down the rabbit hole" with a lot of this over the last 10 years.

It's the result of a personal journey I embarked on some years ago. Without fully realising what I was getting into, I took and swallowed the red pill.

I have been fascinated with the dynamics and mechanics of "what makes organisations tick" for as long as I can remember - which is probably about 50 years.

But I have also been equally fascinated with the "how to do life" dynamics that affects us all.

For many years I felt that these were 2 quite separate fields and lines of enquiry. However, I have come to the realisation that they are not. They are inter-connected. We are all inter-connected. Everything is inter-connected.

I do not simply mean this as an idea or a concept but as a felt and experienced reality. The trouble is, for the vast majority of us, for the majority of the time, we just can't see it - our minds get in the way.

I can't keep silent any longer. I'm coming out of the closet.

The internationally renowned priest, author and respected professor Henri Nouwen used to say that:

“What is most personal is most universal... by giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.”

Without trying to sound too pious, precious or up my own backside about it, I feel that this is the energy behind where I’m now coming from now.

I accept that this may alienate some readers, and if that's how you feel - then that's really OK, let's just acknowledge that we're on different paths - for the moment. You can unsubscribe below - the links are at the end of this ezine.

But if you're OK with what I've just said, or at least if you feel open minded, then please read on and let's see where this leads...

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Can you stop thinking?

"The human condition: lost in thought."

"Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.

In you, as in each human being, there is dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought.

It is the very essense of who you are". [Eckhart Tolle - "Stillness Speaks"]

This is very relevant to change management as for many of us, there are significant aspects of our personal and organisational lives that are out of our control.

The experience for many of us is that change is imposed upon us and/or we are considerably constrained by factors totally beyond our control.

These things are frequently very stressful and often not fully resolvable.

How to cope? How to gain insight, guidance and perspective?

Here is one approach that I use and that has profoundly changed my perspective and experience of some very difficult circumstances - and that is the practise of "Mindfulness", or present moment awareness.

Take a look at these clips:

Jon Kabat-Zinn: What is Mindfulness?

Jon Kabat-Zinn: The Science of Mindfulness

Fancy trying this? Ok here's a good one: try sitting still on a chair or cushion facing a blank wall and just sit there for 15 minutes. No music, no Ipod or mobile phone or any other distractions - just sit there - and stop thinking!

If (or more likely when) you find that you can't stop thinking - just watch your thoughts with no internal analysis or narrative - just witness, watch and observe, like watching clouds blow across the sky.

Here are a few exercises I use - based on the work of Eckhart Tolle:

Freeing yourself from your mind

You can do this with practise. Take just one of the 6 exercises and practise it several times a day for 3 weeks until it becomes a habit. Observe how a greater self-awareness starts to develop and how your interactions with others start to change.

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Expanded perspectives

Put in simple terms, there are limits to how far and how fast people and organisations can change.

It is helpful to have a cognitive map and analysis that facilitates our understanding of this.

If you are using the Practitioners Masterclass materials, you will be familiar with the emphasis that I put on understanding, mapping, communicating and changing organisational cultures.

You will also recall why this is do important (yet so overlooked) - because organisational cultures are the single biggest determinant of how an individual will respond in an organisational environment.

Well here is an expanded perspective of that concept that can be applied to individuals, organisations and societies.

One of the significant elements of this approach is that it shows...
...the evolutionary path of progression that we all follow as our awareness and capabilities expand in response to increasingly complex changes in our external environment.

In other words, metaphorically speaking, you can not jump from childhood to adult maturity in one step and without evolving through all of the intervening stages of development.

So with a fanfare of trumpets, and as we are all consenting adults here, may I introduce you to "Spiral Dynamics" - a "biopsychosocialspiritual systems model" (I've been wanting to say that for ages) that maps and provides a very coherent and expanded perspective on human and societal development.

"Based in the original research and theory building of Dr. Clare W. Graves, this point of view describes how emergent waves of consciousness flow through individuals and groups leading to greater expansiveness in thinking and an increase in conceptual space - the entry of more factors into life's equation and the ability to incorporate more ways of knowing."

It elaborates different ways of behaving which are congruent with shifting views of existence and which people functioning at those different levels deem appropriate."

This has deep implications for how we lead and manage change initiatives – and specifically just how far we can reasonably expect an organisation to develop and at what pace.

In political terms it demonstrates the fallacy and consequent tragedy that Western armies currently serving, dying and getting maimed in Aghanistan can effect a societal transformation that has taken complex western democracies many hundreds of years to develop.

May I recommend that you take a very deep breath then take a quick look at Spiral Dynamics and bookmark for further reading?

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Back to basics

Imagine that you are preparing yourself mentally and emotionally to undergo major heart surgery. You know you will most certainly die soon if you don’t undergo the surgery, you know that the operation is high-risk and you understand that there is 10% possibility that you still might not make it.

You have absolute confidence in what you believe to be the skill, knowledge and experience of your surgeon.

Imagine that as you are being wheeled down the corridor from your hospital ward to the operating theatre, and you are drowsy from the effects of the pre-operative anaesthetic, you overhear the staff talking casually about a 70% failure rate.

Imagine how you feel, as just before you slip into unconsciousness, you hear them saying that the hospital is short staffed, that the surgeons have been replaced and heart surgery is now conducted by senior hospital managers - but that's OK 'cos they've been online and read a few articles about "How to do open heart surgery".

Imagine an army that let their soldiers loose on the battlefield without basic training? Imagine an Olympic athlete who didn’t train extensively, or a top-performing musician who did not practise extensively?

So why we are we so careless, so cavalier, in our approach to change management? And we are, just look at the 70% failure rate as evidence. Can you imagine this as acceptable in say the field of accountancy or civil engineering?

All roads do NOT lead to Rome. The casual “pick and mix” approach of the “content-snackers” to acquiring knowledge is a fallacy.

The army don’t do it this way; no serious athlete does it this way; and no competent musician does it this way either.

What is so overlooked by the prevalent “content-snacking” - “pick and mix” approach - is discernment – the ability to exercise insight, wisdom and perception.

And it's missing because discernment is a faculty that develops as a result of extensive knowledge acquired by thorough training and experience.

There are no short cuts on the journey through the competency cycle [unconscious incompetence –> conscious incompetence -> conscious competence –> unconscious competence].

All of this applies to change management. There is a body of core foundational knowledge – there are things you need to know – have to know – in order to succeed.

This site is devoted to helping visitors and subscribers move from conscious incompetence to conscious competence.

If you haven’t already done so, may I also suggest you take a good look at this page: How to manage change as it introduces and provides links to the key body of background material to the basic training and guidance on this site. I make absolutely no apology for this plug - this is precisely the point of the “Practitioners Masterclass” and the 8 FREE Introductory Lessons from the Practitioners Masterclass

Here's a great change planning checklist from Prosci.

There are some excellent articles and resources on Ken Blanchard's site.

Plus his latest book: Who killed change?

Have a good week.

Namaste
Best Wishes

Stephen

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Stephen Warrilow
Lynton Glenthorne Ltd
2 Beach Mews
The Beach
Clevedon
Bristol BS21 7QU
UK

+44 1275 349878
+44 7860 215986

Strategies for Managing Change

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8 FREE Introductory Lessons from Practitioners Masterclass - HERE

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Burning Question?

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Or, what is your most burning question about being on the receiving end of change...?

What is Your Most Burning Question?

Alternatively, if you prefer email me direct at stephenwarrilow(AT)tiscali.co.uk

Resources

This book will dramatically reduce your 70% chance of failing - either as a change leader or a change survivor.

• You will be shown what to ask and how to act NOW - for immediate results - rapid results can be key to your survival and success

• You will be educated to challenge people and know what the right questions are to ask - a key survival skill

• You will understand the core and universal principles of successful change and how to adapt and apply them to your own organisation - to misquote the former US defence secretary - you will know the "known knowns and the unknown knowns"

• You will understand the strengths and weaknesses of popular change models - you will gain understanding of the holistic view - how it all hangs together - can I share a dirty little secret? No-one - not even Kotter or Bridges has a monopoly on change management "truth"... the key is knowing what matters, when it matters

  8 FREE Introductory Lessons for Practitioners Masterclass

• You will be equipped to challenge prevailing assumptions and to facilitate discussions with colleagues [up + down the line] - extremely useful when your neck is on the line

• You will have a language and framework to articulate sensitive issues - essential when dealing with the messy stuff

• You will have the tools to "health-check" your own plans for a change initiative - and the tools and processes - all ground out of hard painful experience - to ensure you don't make mistakes I have made - and that you succeed both personally and organisationally

• You will gain insights into original perspectives, tools and processes never published before - ideal if you are a student or undertaking some form of higher business education - a fast-track to a good grade on your course.

  8 FREE Introductory Lessons for Practitioners Masterclass

"This is an excellent reference for anyone involved in change management"

[Mike Pollard, Business Analyst, Business Improvement Unit, Information & Communication Services, University of Dundee]

See here for full information - or click on image above left

I can de-risk your initiative by making sure that you anticipate and resolve the issues that derail so many initiatives and lead to that 70% failure rate


Specialist support that:

• Focuses on the areas outside of the scope of traditional programme and change management methodologies

• Gets "under the radar", "behind the lines" - and does "whatever it takes" to ensure that you DO succeed and DON'T become part of the 70% of failures:

  # Before you have an issue - to anticipate it
  # When you have an issue - to neutralise and resolve it
  # After you’ve had an issue - to ensure it doesn’t happen again
  

Click here for more information and to contact me now

Sign Up To This Ezine and Receive This FREE Report

This 33 page document is a brief introduction to some of the key themes and key points that you need to consider in starting the change process.

# Assessing the case for change

# The single biggest issue re managing change

# 8 key strategies for managing change

# 4 key steps to incremental change

# The 3 Keys to realising the benefits of step change

# Recognising the emotional dimension of leadership

# How to reduce the risk of failure of any major business initiative

See here for full information - or click on images above left or below

PLEASE NOTE: If you experience any difficulty with any of the links above - cut the WHOLE LINK and paste it directly into your browser.