Creating Change.

Some things change because of events and circumstance, other people’s decisions and actions, the passage of time, the impact of earlier decisions, external forces.

My work with leaders—people in positions of authority, responsibility, and influence—focuses on intentionally creating and driving change. Revising, repairing, rebuilding. Relinquishing a status quo. Enhancing outcomes.

The starting point for changing decision-making and behavior, individually and in human ecosystems, is internal. Changing minds is hard. It’s incremental, non-linear, dynamic, and involves many micro-steps. It entails overcoming blind spots, fears and anxieties, pre- and misconceptions, avoidance and resistance.

It involves deep, thorough-going understanding of root causes, variables, and consequences—why did this happen and not that? how did we get here, actually? what could we have done differently? why didn’t we?

Astutely studying history and deconstructing trajectories to the present are critically important. But creating change is primarily future-oriented—what will be different if we change this or that? what will it be like? how can we get there? what has to change for things to change?

While challenging, that work is vitally important. And fantastically exciting and rewarding.

I think about all of this constantly. My professional life is oriented around helping organizational leaders map and traverse change.

But I’m particularly focused on it today as a I reflect on January 28 three years ago. 2020.

On that day, the world was still unaware of the coming #pandemic and the transformative impact it would create.

On that day, as I stepped onto the stage at Carnegie Hall 's Weill Hall, I was focused on a different, personal form of change.

I'd played a solo piano recital there in 1991—a program of late Brahms, a juxtaposed grouping of Bach and Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues in the same key signatures, and Beethoven Sonata Op 101. But after deciding to change careers—going to graduate school and entering psychoanalytic training, and then launching and developing my consulting firm, Dolus Advisors —I never expected to perform there again.

But things change.

It was the inaugural showcase of After Arts Group , a group founded by Nicholas King comprised of successful professionals across a range of sectors and expertise with shared backgrounds as conservatory trained musicians with earlier careers in music.

Shu-Ping Shen Tony Finley Eugene Carr and I performed Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat K 493.

The process that took me from musician to clinical psychoanalyst to entrepreneur and consultant involved intense, dedicated focus and work undertaken over a long time.

The motivations (or imperatives) for change, what change looks like, and how it plays out, will be different for each person, institution, or situation. My experience is only a point of entry.

What I want to emphasize here is harnessing the willingness and capacity to change with purpose—thoughtfully, intentionally, iteratively making things different. Knowing why change is meaningful or necessary. Accurately forecasting, not just excitedly and hopefully imagining, what the change will bring. Assiduously architecting the ways to achieving that vision. And designing realistic systems to executing it.

What do you strive to change? How will you go about it?

I’m Founder of Dolus Advisors, a bespoke consultancy advising CEOs, senior management teams, corporate directors, and founders in organizational issues involving complex psychological underpinnings. We deliver actionable insight, penetrating analysis and practical counsel to help enhance critical decision-making, manage and mitigate risks, and resolve intricate human-factor problems, and we help leaders understand and address organizational challenges beyond the capabilities of conventional business consulting by leveraging deep expertise in human decision-making, motivation and behavior. Visit www.dolusadvisors.com

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Follow my writing in Forbes on the psychology of decision-making and unintended consequences in organizations and society: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderstein/?sh=32b57c656220