Light it Up

There’s a natural tendency to let things fall into routine as we get through our days going to and from work, or to and from our coffee tables for those with the liberty to be able to work from home.? Last year at the Asia Pacific Conference for the Association for Talent Development in Taipei, facilitator extraordinaire, Jimbo Clark , mentioned in his presentation the (radical?) idea that people want to change, they just don’t want to BE changed.? I happen to agree with his point of view, and at the same time I know that when we are going through a transformation or change, there needs to be someone or a group of someones who light the match that starts the fire.? Someone needs to be at the top of the hill, pushing that stone that gives kinetic energy to what once was potential.??

We all have the ability to light that fire, and I would like to extend the challenge out there to each individual to be the catalyst for a change that they care about in their organization at some point in their careers.? We all have some very specific changes that we know would improve our professional lives, from something as tangible as more comfortable seats and better-tasting coffee to a more transparent system of compensation and benefits.? The distance between the desire for change and flicking the match to ignite the fire can seem immeasurable, however, when we doubt ourselves, think twice, and repeatedly ask, “who am I to make that change?”?

Below are three things we must keep in mind when we are lighting that match to ignite change.

1. Empower Ourselves First

“A leader always needs to empower himself before he/she empowers others. “ Rubina Husain

Empowerment of oneself happens when we push our beliefs towards positive and meaningful action. By taking proactive steps to turn our aspirations into reality, we gain a sense of agency and control over our own lives.? Perhaps there are practices that we see in our workplaces that we want to change. We can spend all day at our desks thinking about how we can integrate movement and healthier workplace habits into our professional lives, or we can start the practice of making sure that we incorporate time for movement, and perhaps even a daily walk into our daily schedules.?

2. Become an Imperfectionist

"By accepting that our work will not be perfect from the start, we can overcome this fear of failure and get started on a project with a sense of freedom and excitement. " Florin Andrei Rusu from "Embracing Imperfection: Why Your Goal Should be Imperfect Work"

We need to start having a positive relationship with Imperfection (with a capital “I”).? There’s a bit of a perfectionist who resides in all of us; however, this perfectionist, while well-intentioned, is often who is holding us back from even trying.? As a personal example, when I started to write a digital newsletter for the company I work in, I had no experience using the online platform I would publish it on, not to mention zero experience writing a digital newsletter in the first place.? I knew that the first edition would be my best shot at the time, but I also knew that it would be far from perfect, and most likely a digital mess.? After almost three years of publishing a monthly newsletter in Pershing Technology Services Corporation 北祥科技服務股份有限公司 , I look back and cringe a bit at the earlier edition.? Then I realize that the cringing is the Perfectionist judging me from an outside perspective…even I have to remind myself to be a proud Imperfectionist.? If I was a Perfectionist, I never would have started in the first place.

Excellencism accepts that you can never achieve flawlessness, so you go for excellent, and the way you do that is that you lean into the mistakes, learn from them, you don’t beat yourself up, and know that making mistakes is on the way to Excellent. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary from Simon Sinek 's Podcast, "A Bit of Optimism: The Wisdom of Anxiety"

3. Fan the Flames

Regardless of the scope or size of the change we help to push along in our organizations, in order to make change and improvement sustainable, people need to be well-informed.? This need is especially true if we are working in a company or industry where there may be a high turnover rate, or our company is experiencing growth and new staff are coming in on a regular basis.? There needs to be a way for those who enter AFTER the change has happened to know about the change that has occurred.? If we were instrumental in helping to start a volunteering project for employees, there needs to be clear evidence of this program documented in pictures, social media, on a company timeline, website, or even in an internal company newsletter or podcast.? Newcomers to the company need to know about this initiative in their onboarding to give them an idea of perspective, as well as being informed of the changes that the company has experienced over time.? Most importantly, it's imperative that they know, they too, can be part of this change. Each one of us has the potential to light the match.