Change is a part of life. You can create it or it can happen to you. Either way, change is life's middle name. The question is: can we manage it, control it, harness it...?
This question is something that walks beside me as a companion professionally ever since I started my career as a sales trainer and business consultant, but also as an entrepreneur 18 years ago.
Sometimes I found the answer to this question, sometimes not. More often not...
Why?
I believe the reason hides in the following fact: My mistake was to concentrate only on one aspect of the change that I wanted or that happened in my life, business or sales or in my clients' business or sales.
I focused only on the reason for change wondering why the change. Or I thought all the time only on the strengths I or my client needed to go through change. Or I was busy all the time with coordinating all the things that needed to change.
But never did I look at the "big picture" of change - at all the elements that comprise the movement of change. Oooh yes, make no mistake about it: change means moving.
Moving from one physical or metaphorical place to another.
If you want to ride a horse from point A to B, your movement is based on certain principles that have to be honored in order that we achieve our quest without failure. Muscle strength, the technique of riding, coordinating different bodyparts, balance, a clear strategy on how to reach point B the most efficient way and, in the end, the ability to correct our selves while on the way. We have to control and harness all these things during our ride.
The same thing goes for any change. Without having these principles in mind, every change is doomed for failure.
This is why many of the sales trainings I conducted in the past (more than I want to admit) did not bring the change desired by me or the client. We focused only on the sales technique that we wanted to see changed & improved in the sales team, but disregarded all other things needed for this change to be a longterm success. The participants made the first attempt to "ride" from A to B and fell to the floor, demotivated and disillusioned. We ignored strenghts needed to realize our goals, there was no coordination after the sales training, the balance between what we want and what is possible was not there, there was no implementation strategy and no one there to correct the whole project in the long term after the sales training was executed.
And the same things happen over and over again with every personal, organizational, business and team change all over the world.
We get up on that horse named "Change" without harnessing it and wonder later why we fall over and over again.
So, next time you meet with change or want to change something, just think of riding from A to B and consider what you need to harness in order not to fall from "Change"...
By Danijel Bićanić
