Did you hear the one about the Buddhist monk who asked the hot dog vendor “Can you make me one with everything?”
So the hot dog vendor prepares the hot dog as requested, hands it to the Buddhist monk, and the monk pays with a $20 bill. The hot dog vendor then immediately turns to the next customer and starts helping them. The monk says in an annoyed tone “Where is my change?”. The hot dog vendor replies “Change comes from within.” and continues serving the new customer.
I have a confession to make. Most of my career has been spent being an IT Systems Engineer or something similar. One of the important things that needs to be focused on in IT is Change Management. Change is a fact of life, but the trick is in how you manage that change.
As you probably have figured out by reading the blog I’m big into models as a way of representing and understanding a real world phenomenon. An interesting model to look at is the ADKAR Model of Change.
It’s another hierarchy whereby you need to satisfy the earlier level(s) before achieving the next level in the hierarchy. Awareness of the need for change has to be satisfied before you can move onto the Desire to support and participate in the change. Once Desire has been achieved you need to acquire the Knowledge of how to change, or at the very least the knowledge to know to start to change. Once Knowledge has been achieved and you’ve decided to begin to change your Ability comes into play.
Any job worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first.
~ Change/Improvement maxim
Your ability may start off in the poor category, but you can expand your skill set and have even greater ability in the future. Once you’ve acquired Ability and you’ve made some change you now need to put Reinforcement into play so that you don’t backslide and that you continue to move forward. Change can be hard to fight for and achieve so you need reinforcement of your new skills and habits so that you don’t return to your older, less evolved self.
Where I personally fall short in the model is around the Reinforcement stage. I can be fairly far along the change hierarchy, but I’m not skilled and well practiced in reinforcing the change and applying the necessary discipline in my life to guarantee a lasting change. Progress not perfection. I’m flawed, and so are you. You can however make progress in the change you wish to implement in your life. You can do it, take a small step or perhaps a leap into a new way of approaching things.
You can do this.
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