“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” – Seneca
As leaders we all spend a lot of time talking about change. So does everybody else for that matter – if you google “change” you get 1.14 billion hits. Everybody agrees that change is an unavoidable part of life. Whether it’s in your business or your personal life, I guarantee things will not stay the same. Nothing does.
The trick is how we react to it, or better yet, “pro-act” (not sure that’s a word but you’ll get the idea). When we visit with leaders of organizations (or people in general, for that matter), they tend to have one of three attitudes about change.
Attitude number one is denial, also known as, “If I just curl up in a ball and hide I won’t have to change.” I’m not going to waste any time on that idea. Usually those cases are hopeless – our energy is best spent elsewhere.
Attitude number two is an acceptance that the world around them is changing quickly and on some level, like it or not, they’re going to have to change too. These people are constantly looking around to see if there’s something they should be doing in response to the changing environment. If the marketplace changes, they try to figure out how to sell in it. If people change, they’ll try to figure out how to better manage them. This group has a chance, but they’ll have a tendency to feel like things are always out of control because they are always responding to someone or something else. In the end, they quite often feel like their lives or their businesses or both have survived, but just aren’t what they want them to be.
Attitude number three is your best bet. What if you decided what change you wanted before it showed up and hit you over the head? What if, rather than watching around you to see who to follow, you decided to lead? What if you created a vision in your head of what kind of life or business you wanted, and then actively went after it? People who are great at change usually are the ones doing those things – they’re not trying to manage change that is forced upon them; they’re forcing change on their world.
Which attitude do you have? Are you waiting to implement change after the world dictates to you what that change will be? Or do you have a vision that compels you and those around you to change the world into what you want it to be? Don’t let some outside force cause you to change – make your own change.
