Don't be a Cnut - ask Better Questions
Why do organisations differentiate between 'Business as usual' and 'Change'? Heraclitus signposted this anomaly 2,500 years ago when he wrote: 'Everything flows and nothings stays'.
The picture above demonstrates one common method of dealing with change.
King Cnut (Canute) tried this approach in Bosham, West Sussex, in about 1000 AD. It didn't work well. Yet this is a typical human response to the changing tides of business - a delusional denial that change is actually happening, followed by a misguided resistance, probably, in this case, followed by anger that he'd got his best sandals wet.
There is an inevitability and relentlessness about change.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the world to her change curve in 1969, to describe the human grieving process. It stills forms the cornerstone of most thinking about sustained behaviour change today - anywhere.
So here is another approach to change:
Heraclitus also wrote 'You cannot step into the same river twice'. Our bodies change with every single breath we breathe; our customers' perceptions of us change with every single interaction we have with them. Nothing stays the same. Business as usual IS Change - or at least it should be. Change IS...Just get on with it.
David Cooperrider, the creator of Appreciative Inquiry (AI), wrote that 'Change starts as soon as you ask the first question'. His observation, which lead to the development of AI, was that change always tends to be 'deficit focused'. Indeed, much of the consultancy industry is predicated on 'fixing stuff that's broken'. Cooperrider's questions turn this on its head because they are always positively framed. As an intervention method, AI is so much more engaging and powerful than the traditional blame-fuelled approach of 'organisational post mortem'. It is a brilliant way of short-cutting the change curve, as it focuses everyone's energy and attention on the upward path.
The four steps of AI - Discovery; Dream; Design; Destiny, align perfectly with the growth phase of the change curve:
Experiment - Accept - Integrate
There is an essence of greatness in every person or organisation which always persists; a light which cannot be extinguished, no matter what happens. The key lies in asking better questions, because not only does change start as soon as you ask the first question; that question will determine the outcome. www.betterquestions.co.uk