I sat down with my coffee, to enjoy a little reading before starting my day at the office. To my great delight, there was a post from my favorite blogger. It was even on a topic that I am really wrestling with. I thought to myself, "Pumpkin coffee and and a Carey Nieuwhof post on leadership, a perfect start to my morning".
Then I read the post and got my butt kicked. I hope you enjoy, and are challenged.
http://careynieuwhof.com/2012/09/the-number-one-reason-you-and-the-people-you-lead-dont-change/
Good to see you're alive and kicking, Charlie.
ReplyDeleteLiked the Nieuwhof blog about change and agreed with much of it, however he has a pretty negative view about change. He states that we only undergo a change because the pain associated with one behavior is less than the pain associated with another behavior. While that is SOMETIMES true, it doesn't account for OTHER reasons we change. How about:
"You can see a change in my behavior because I am a new creature (halleljuah)."
"I've made a change in my life because I've weighed all the advantages and disadvantages associated with my current behavior and with a new, proposed behavior and found the new behavior is more beneficial to me." (While this simply sounds like the flip side of Nieuwhof's claim, it's much more than that. Sometimes human beings are able to rationally analyze a situation and choose a new behavior for more than avoidance of the pain and for more than getting a cookie.)
There are other options as well. I guess I object to the notion that we only change to avoid a spanking (figuratively speaking). Nieuwhof does a good job blogging about avoiding the pain, but he neglects an opportunity to instruct his readers about other techniques to help them change.
Still, I always appreciate someone poking and prodding me to make better choices.
Hey Dan, I completely agree with you that the # 1 reason for change in a life should be "Hallelujah I am a new creature". I think your second option, "Because the new behavior is more beneficial to me", is what he was encouraging us toward, in the post. What kicked my butt was the need to change my attitude from "I'll change because I have to (pain motivator)", toward "I'll change because I've weighted all the advantages and disadvantages associated with my current behavior and with a new proposed behavior and found the new behavior to be beneficial to me."
ReplyDeleteMost of what I have read from this author is relative to organizational change. In that context he believes that you need to show people in your organization (or church) why continuing with their current behavior is not as beneficial to the goals as a change might be. To some extent this is a means of "increasing the pain associated with the status quo". This particular article focused on the idea that a leader will be more effective in bringing about organizational change when he sets a personal example that change is good. In effect decreasing the pain associated with change.