There’s something you want to do. But you’re not doing it. (How do I know? Because we all have that in our careers and lives!) It might even have become a source of serious – or at least mild – frustration. Why aren’t you doing it? Let’s ask a few questions. And bear in mind: this is relevant to anything in …
Is change hard?
There are many reasons why change feels hard. The unknown is scary We’ve all seen (and probably experienced) how easy it is to stay in uncomfortable – and even painful and dangerous – situations because they’re known and familiar. As poet and author Anais Nin famously said, And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the …
Are you a “lifelong learner”?
“I’m a lifelong learner!” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say that, or read it in a resume or on a LinkedIn profile, or saw it in some sort of social-media meme … I don’t know if I’d be set for life, but I’d certainly be richer than I am. The problem with feel-good sayings …
What people *say* isn’t what they *do*!
I’m presenting – virtually, of course – at the OHIMA conference this week. Subject: Change Leadership. The conference organizers asked the speakers for some pre-session warmup questions about our topic. This is what I sent: When I’m asked to lead change, I… My favorite ways to resist change are… Being required to change makes me feel… I’m fascinated by the …
Change leadership? Who cares?
It’s odd to me that change leadership is so often overlooked when companies embark on a big strategic change. The focus is typically on change management – which is primarily about project management: how we get from here to there, planning, resource allocation, task assignments, status tracking, and so on. A big strategic change initiative may have multiple projects, of course, but …
Why we don’t USE what we LEARN?
How does that work again? If you’ve been to a conference, workshop, or training program, or if you’ve read a book or article teaching something you wanted to learn, you’ve almost certainly had that thought. How does that work again? You were intrigued by what you’d learned. You were excited to put it into practice. And then you got back …
“Just” a business decision?
“It’s just a business decision.” That, my friend, is an excuse for doing something you know is going to hurt someone – maybe multiple someones – and not taking appropriate responsibility for it, nor finding a way to mitigate the impact. It’s never “JUST” a business decision. Many (many) moons ago, I worked for a software company where the CEO …
Leadership and mental health
Employee mental health is the top priority for almost every HR person I’ve been in contact with recently. We’re not wired, mentally, emotionally, or physically, to undergo extended periods of uncertainty and stress. Yet what has this last year been, but … an extended period of uncertainty and stress? I’m sure I don’t need to convince you of that. So …
Change and loss aversion
Why do we want to create change? Based on our actions (hello, New Year’s resolutions!), we think we want to change more than we actually do change. And the same is often true of organizational change initiatives, as illustrated by the sad statistic that 70% of change initiatives either fail outright, or aren’t sustained over time. That’s a really sad statistic, especially when …
When things are deeply weird
As leaders, how are we to handle events that happen outside the company, but have a significant impact on our employees? This is a question that comes up more often than one might prefer. On 9/11, I was still working in corporate, an executive in a midsize technology company on the U.S. West Coast. We had a number of employees …