Confessions of a change manager

October 12, 2011
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change managerI spend a lot of time acting as the change ‘expert’ for people and organisations. Yet when my own change program started to go wrong, I learned a few new things about professional mastery.

Maybe you have been there? You are working on something you care about. You think it is going to plan…then suddenly it is not. But we learn much more about ourselves when things are going wrong than when things are going right.   Here is what I learned:

“We can’t solve problems using the same thinking that created them”

That is one of my favourite adages. The first thing I had to do was to get away from my work environment. Every minute I sat at my desk, I was using the same thinking. My attention was on what was going wrong. I was creating a downward spiral. I was focussed on problems, not solutions.

I left my busy office and went to one of my favourite beaches and just sat and watched the waves. I realised that my brain was full of a constant chatter of unhelpful thoughts: Failure, blame, incompetence. These were stopping me from being productive.

As I sat there, I realised that my brain had not rested for weeks. If I wanted my brain to help me though this stressful period, I needed to give it room to think. I committed to finding time for yoga and meditation, which I had stopped doing because of my busy schedule.

‘No’ is a powerful tool

Once I had calmed my brain, I could start to focus on solutions. I realised that I had been letting myself get distracted by problems that were not even truly mine. I wrote down my priorities. I started saying ‘no’ when people asked me to get involved with other things. I reminded them of my priorities and they (reluctantly) agreed.

Life is better on the front foot

Once I had my priorities clear and the mental space to do them, I got to work. I dedicated several evenings and weekend days to catching up on work so that I could stay ahead of what was happening. Each day I collected more problems and each evening I got back on top of them so that by the next day I could keep moving. I spent several Sundays doing the ‘big rocks’ (the tasks I would never get done in my interrupt-driven office environment). It was tiring. I knew that I could not maintain that pace indefinitely. But, I also knew it was temporary. After a month or so, I have been able to return to some normal work hours and I feel more in control. The project is back where it needs to be.

You’ve got to know your purpose

My role as a change manager is to be one step ahead of my customer and to keep them on a path for success. Critical to my success are my ability to manage not only my customer, but also my time and myself. Those responsibilities can’t be outsourced or even shared. They have to come from within me. Or in the words of Peter Senge:

“The discipline of personal mastery starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us, of living our lives in the service of our highest aspirations.”

Do you know your purpose? Once you are clear on the role you play and your style of playing it, you are on your way to mastering your professional self. And, that is exactly who you need to rely on when things go wrong.

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