The Essentials of Change Management - in Less Than 300 Words

Change management is about preserving, or maintaining, or enhancing our individual sense of dignity.

Our sense of identity.

Our sense of worthiness.

In a word, our sense of self.

That same sense of self, of worthiness, of identity, of dignity that is the cause of all of our current benefits.

And all of the detriments too.

For example, the benefits of the "occasional" tipple might be to the detriment of another time, or another place, or another logical level - like the family and large.

You might also call these positive outcomes and negative outcomes.

Or you might call these current solutions and current problems.

Whichever way you frame it, in the management of change we are looking for better solutions than that ones that we have got at the moment, without losing any of the current benefits and without being encumbered with any of the current detriments. It looks like this.

And how do we get there I hear you ask? Well, through ...

... through understanding. And how do we get to understanding I hear you ask? Through, well, ...

... through metaphor. Edwards Deming used tacit metaphor, Taiichi Ohno used explicit metaphor in the form of analogy, Eli Goldratt from the early '80's through to the early '90's used tacit metaphor - and exceedingly well at that.

You see, when we learn and increase our understanding through the use of metaphor, we ...

... we also increase our sense of self-reliance. The sum total is much better than, and also much more than, any of the former parts.

And once again, here's the key.

Metaphor that is the key that unlocks the puzzle; learning and coming to understand something that we don’t know through something that we already do know.