Learning Through Change – Do You?

How many times have you said to yourself at work:
“I’ve seen it all before; it didn’t work then and it won’t work now”

If I had a pound coin for every time I’ve heard that when running change seminars I’d have very heavy pockets!

Yet before dismissing such utterances as cynicism from died in the wool change resistors it is worth taking stock. Evaluating the successes and the unsuccessful is a crucial element in managing the change process, yet it it astounding how often this bit gets left out.

When Change Doesn’t Work

In large corporations a failed change strategy often results in the lead person ‘leaving’ with others then politically distancing themselves from the process. Very few senior executives seem prepared to look in depth at the processes as learning for next time.

In my experience of working within several large organisations, the most successful are those that can take into account the people who actually deliver the job on the ground and involve and engage them from day one. The top down approach simply doesn’t cut it any more.

A recent government report prepared by David McCloud and Nita Clarke put it this way:

‘We believe that if employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood, if good practice was more widely shared, if the potential that resides in the country’s workforce was more fully unleashed, we could see a step change in workplace performance and in employee well-being, for the considerable benefit of UK plc.

Engagement, going to the heart of the workplace relationship between employee and employer, can be a key to unlocking productivity and to transforming the working lives of many people for whom Monday morning is an especially low point of the week’.
Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee engagement. July 2009

So the old ‘seen it all before’ cynic may teach us something after all! Step one in any change process is get your people on board!

And the same principle applies to personal change. Who are the key people you need to support you in any changes you want to make? Are they with you, supporting you? Or are they secretly trying to sabotage you as they are fearful of the consequences? Always check first!

If you’d like to find out more about my seminars for managing your staff through change and uncertainty click here!

Are You Flexible Enough?

‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll  get what you’ve always got‘ the old adage says, but actually in times of change and economic recession even just getting what you’ve always got is no longer guaranteed!

If you run a successful business you will know that you have to keep a weather eye on the economic climate, competitors, fashion and so on to maintain an edge. If you’re successful you know that you have to keep being flexible and offering what your clients want and need. You have to be prepared to change.

But if you are an employee are you as flexible?

Assess Yourself

I was coaching a business owner a while back who was talking about changes that had to be made within the company. Her dilemma was that she had some very good staff and some OK staff. All were loyal with low sickness records etc but she knew that over the course of the next year there would probably have to be a reduction in staffing levels. I asked her to consider which staff gave her most value and I didn’t mean staff who worked for less, or longer unpaid hours. They weren’t offering her any additional value; simply turning up and doing your job without mishap is not enough when jobs are at risk. We were talking about staff who were enthusiastic, offered ideas, undertook training, sometimes even of their own volition.

If you are employed it might be worth taking time out to reflect on your flexibility. What changes are afoot in your industry or business? Can you see a new skill base being required in the not too distant future? How can you add value to what you bring to your role? If the future looks uncertain have you considered alternatives? When did you last undertake professional/job related training?What alternative sources of employment are there in your vicinity? If you were suddenly to be unemployed, how would you manage?

Being prepared to face up to potential problems can lessen their impact and put you ahead of the field.

And if you did have to change your current role, what opportunities might there be?

If you’ve been in this position I’d love to hear from you and how you coped. Did you use an outside resource like a careers advisor? A coach? A CV expert? Did your company provide helpful support? What would you advise others? Did you see the change coming?

Three Tips to Happiness!

Listening to the news each day can be, frankly, very dispiriting with forecasts of economic gloom and environmental disasters: if we’re not careful we could find ourselves getting caught up in a downward spiral of misery. Similarly, talking excessively about problems and concerns (and I don’t mean sensible evaluation and taking action, but getting to the point when it’s all you focus on) has been shown to cause anxiety and even depression.

Good News

But the good news is that happiness and good humour is contagious too! There are some things that no economic crisis can take away from you, like your innate talents, resources, family and friends. Take a few moments to reflect on those each day.

Three Cheerfulness Tips

1) Stay calm and carry on! By which I mean don’t let yourself get dragged into a cycle of moaning and complaint to no purpose. Go on the complaint diet. Even one tiny moan a day uses up masses of cheerfulness calories so go for a smile instead. When someone starts up a litany of complaints, tell them you are following the complaint diet and will have to decline! Hopefully that will make them smile!

2) Share more! Start talking to neighbours, colleagues, friends about what you have which you can share. Like a power washer perhaps or books? Maybe you have a glut of vegetables you could offer? Once you start opening up in this way it’s amazing what you discover. Sharing a car to go shopping can lead onto sharing the buy one get one free offers which tempt you into buying too much, for example. But it also brings you a closer appreciation of your local community.

3) In times of economic downturn it can feel like you are in competition with everyone else for fewer resources, particularly in work situations. To counter this, think about joining a group and nourish your community spirit together. It might be a coffee club at work, a sewing group, a reading group at your local library, or an allotment club. Find one that interests you or start one of your own!

Try at least one of the above and see if it impacts on your happiness levels. Making yourself more happy is a very altruistic thing to do. Research in the US has revealed that happiness really is highly contagious. The findings show that when you become happy, any friend of yours who lives within a mile becomes 25% more happier too! And a friend of that friend is likely to be 10% happier, and a friend of that friend’s friend (still with me?) will be 5% happier!

It’s a positive civic duty to be a happy soul! I wish you much happiness today!

And please do share your own happiness tips!

Femageism? Watch out!

The population of the UK is ageing. Over the last 25 years the percentage of the population aged 65 and over increased from 15 per cent in 1983 to 16 per cent in 2008, an increase of 1.5 million people in this age group.

Over the same period, the percentage of the population aged 16 and under decreased from 21 per cent to 19 per cent. This trend is projected to continue. By 2033, 23 per cent of the population will be aged 65 and over compared to 18 per cent aged 16 or younger. (Office for National Statistics),

So why are major employers (with a few notable exceptions) still discriminating against older people?  And are you ageist in your attitudes? Do you make jokes about older people that you’d never make about other groups in society because they would sound so bad, yet we don’t notice with older people? Do you put yourself down for being older?

Over 40, Over the Hill?

A good friend of mine has just started a fashion web site for women over 40, called Fashionable Maven. It launched this week but Vicki Day, site owner, has been researching and working on it for months. She plans to feature fashions for women over 40 and as such approached several big clothes manufacturers.

And some said “I don’t want my clothes associated with women over 40″.

Can you believe it? Apart from it being blatant femageism, it shows a sad lack of understanding of the power and increasing number of this age group of women. I’m not going to name and shame but Vicki might on her site at some point!

Fight Back!

Time to take a stand I think. Whether you are over 40 or not, try this exercise for one week:

For the next seven days eliminate all ageist vocabulary and comments from your life. Notice how often you are having ageist thoughts (e.g muttering, ‘stupid old fool, shouldn’t be driving’ when actually you may have experienced several ‘fools’ on the road of all ages!) Just try and eliminate the ageist bit, you can still be ‘drivist’!

When you look at someone older than you, don’t see wrinkles and decreasing ability, see wisdom and beauty. Don’t be taken in by the advertising that worships eternal youth! After all, with luck, we’ll all be old one day!

Interview

Vicki interviewed me for her site, which was a novel experience! I’m normally doing the interviewing. You can read the interview in full by clicking here.

PS Interestingly, it was not easy to find a positive picture of an older woman to illustrate this post! So I used my lovely Mum, taken on her 80th birthday!

The Paradox of Change

The Universe is Change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius Antonius

Change is a paradox because actually nothing ever stays the same; all is change. Our bodies today are not the same bodies we had yesterday. There have been masses of tiny changes, small but incrementally they add up to something very significant. I do not look the same person from 10 years ago, but I don’t notice a significant change in my appearance today from yesterday, yet I am different.

In nature the changes may appear slow as we go through the seasons, watching day to day changes in plants and flowers, the weather.  There is a cycle of nature which we understand. And yet nature can surprise us often with volcanic dust clouds, heat-waves, floods and earthquakes. It is changing all the time.

Understanding that life is constant change is a fundamental concept to grasp if we’re to manage other changes in our lives successfully. Everything you have experienced has brought you to today, is part of you today and impacts on you and your future. You have an extraordinary and immense capacity to cope with change.

You are truly amazing!

Follow Your Dreams!

In a recent article Jane Asher, actress and  successful businesswoman said, “If you have the choice, pursue what you enjoy”. Good advice, as long as you know what it is you enjoy!

When coaching I am always encouraging women to follow their dreams, whatever they are. And it is the knowing what we want that can sometimes be difficult. So many of us know that what we have is not fulfilling us, but just don’t know what we want instead (which is why I wrote ‘When Work isn’t Working‘.)

Any Age

Whatever age you are, it’s worth investing some time to work out what you want to be doing with your life. It may be something you can’t possible ever imagine achieving at this point in time, but it’s always good to have an aspiration. Knowing where you’d like to be in life will help you with all your decision making.

Maybe you have what currently seems like a fantasy of giving up the safe and reliable day job and instead running your own business? It may seem an impossible dream now but there will be things you can be doing now right now which will take you nearer your goal.

Free Help

For example, did you know that the tax office in UK provides all sorts of free seminars for would be business people? Or that Business Link has masses of information freely available on its web site? Get yourself a dream folder and when you see something helpful, put it in your resource pack!

Or maybe you can take up a part time role, perhaps unpaid with a charity, which will help you develop the skills you need to achieve your ultimate goal when the circumstances are right. Remember, luck has been defined as preparation meeting opportunity. Successful people in all walks of life have taken advantage of opportunities that have come their way but they have almost always put in the leg work beforehand.

And don’t let age stop you! Many dot com millionaires are still in their teens when they make it and equally many who have achieved their dreams have done so later in life. I was in my late forties when I pursued my dream working life! And Beryl Cook, at one point the most famous popular artist in Britain, didn’t sell a picture until she was in her sixties!

So what is your dream for your life? And what can you do right now to help take you a step nearer?

And if you’re not sure, please do try out my free visualisation- simply click the link up on the right ‘Your Perfect Day‘.