That’s not a trick question. But it is an important question.
What’s all around you? What do you see every day? What’s become so familiar to your eyes and brain that you don’t even see it any more?
If you want to influence change, whether for yourself personally or for your team or organization, this is something to think about.
Our environment – the things we see around us in our offices, homes, on familiar travels from one place to another – is perfectly and ideally set up to keep everything exactly as it is.
Think about that for a minute. The environment you’re in is exactly what you need to maintain the status quo.
But what if you want to create change?
Aha! You get it, right? Change something in the environment. Create a pattern interrupt – something that catches the eye, or physically makes you move differently – as the exercise coaches tell us, put the running shoes where you’ll fall over them.
And it doesn’t even have to be directly related to the change we’re trying to create.
Many years ago, when I first started my business, I bought this little pewter dragon to remind me not to expect the kind of immediate email response I got when I was a senior executive in an organization. (There’s a big difference between the kind of quick reply one gets as a senior leader, versus the, let’s just say, rather slower response when one is an independent consultant reaching out to make connections!)
Dragons have nothing to do with email. But he was a visual pattern interrupt that helped me remember not to get wrapped around the proverbial axle when my emails went unanswered.
It worked.
You don’t need anything fancy. You just need something that’s different in your environment that you’ve mentally connected to the change you’re working on.
Environment is just one of three factors that are part of all change – successful or not. Want to know more? Drop me a note through my contact form and we’ll set a time to talk.