I always love the business thinking and wonderful flow charts of Dave Pollard, consultant and former Chief Knowledge Officer with E&Y Canada, which is why I link to his blog, How to Save the World (look to the right under check these out). His most recent posting, How Change Happens, has a great chart on how you can influence and provoke change and the change process. As Dave points out, the world is changing ever faster with technology and the number of people while the people themselves, change slowly. As he says, “We are change-resistant. We change when we have no other real choice. Social change is therefore a complex phenomenon: It occurs only when a large group of people have no other choice.” He continues and discusses that you need a “catalyst, a provocation to change”, and as Rebecca and I have often said in our consulting work, you also need a sense of urgency. “But when we finally reach that tipping point, we can change remarkably quickly. Today I listened to a presentation (with a great story line) that changed the thinking of a whole room of people (more on it tomorrow). I’ve been through similar sudden, major Self-Changes, for example when I read each of the fifteen critical books on my Save the World Reading List.” Check out his list and also try the exercise the suggests:
Tell a story about some significant Let-Self-Change in your life. What was the catalyst? Did it happen suddenly or gradually? What did it feel like — was it an Aha! or a sense of sheepishness (“how could I ever have believed that?).
What does this teach us about how to bring about change in others?