Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the tag “Language”

06 Aug 2008

The Personality of Change

Blue Planet by Dez Pain

Blue Planet by Dez Pain

 

 

The Anatomy or Structure of Change. How does change happen? How does it last? Whether for you as an individual, or for a team of individuals in a company.

I struggled with the title because the drivers of a successful change seem to come from many different areas. The structural shift. The psychological shift. The habits and routine shifts. etc.

First, a definition. I see successful change as being the thing that happens to make you move from one state to another state; that state then remains and becomes the norm.

I redrafted from my initial attempt at this post where I had considered that successful change was pre-planned to achieve a desired/ better state. I believe that as much can be learnt from change happening for the worst. So that the new state of affairs is less desirable than pre-change.

As an initial brainstorm of the various aspects or elements of the personality of change:

  • The theory: mentally I start considering the process of change in a systematic, paper-based way. It can be planned and structured and implemented.
  • The quick win: there are immediate rewards in the case of change to a desired state. Immediate benefits are seen by those involved to motivate into starting routine and repetition.
  • The buy-in: reality is that the mental acceptance and then physical behaviours of those impacted have to align with the new future state for it to be considered successful.
  • The language: language shifts. The new state is articulated as a ‘done deal’. The new language associated is used (stiltedly at first) by those involved, but more confidently as time goes on. This seems to have a viral effect.

To be continued.

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Posted in Change, Communication, Learning and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
09 Jul 2008
3 Comments

Why Do We Feel Better if the Wording is Changed?

“There is no doubt that bringing elements of the US strategic arsenal close to Russian territory could be used to weaken our deterrent potential,” the Russian foreign ministry said. “…in such a situation the Russian side will take appropriate measures to compensate for potential created for threats to its national security”

Now I did a degree in Politics. Scary times, but not the point of this post.

A few minutes after reading the above in the FT, I opened up a letter about my subscription to the Times. They used to send ‘Timesaver’ tokens through with the vouchers. A perk of the subscription, it meant that I didn’t need to collect vouchers for anyspecial offers available. The letter said ‘You may notice that Timesaver Tokens are no longer included. We are continually working on new ways in which to deliver special promotions to you…..’

Yesterday I spent most of my time giving 360 degree feedback to my line reports at Madgex. We use a tool called My3Things which I based on a brilliant ‘rapid’ feedback tool from a guy called Matt Clarke from beyondnowhere UK. He worked with the finance team when I was at Sainsbury’s.

The feedback tool asks the person giving the feedback to give three things they’ve really noticed about the person they’re giving feedback to. And three things they’d love to see more of.

Now you may be asking yourself whether I’ve gone mad. What do these three things have in common?

Read more…

Posted in Communication, Conscious and Unconscious, Writing and tagged , , , ,

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