A Plan for Courageous Change
I spent a few years working in the organic and health food industry where I became familiar with a lot of new ideas and terms. One that stood out for me was the concept of “Healing Crisis.” This is the idea that when you make positive changes in your diet and general lifestyle after a time of neglect, you may experience a period of detoxification that can be quite difficult and symptomatic. This is a stage that must be slogged through and endured in order to enjoy the newly acquired healthy life ahead. The problem is that many people encounter this stage and become discouraged that their new healthy habits are bringing such discomfort and therefore quit. Some even draw a connection between the good habits and the discomfort and therefore return to their bad habits with new resolve and satisfaction that they are right and they shouldn’t ever change again. This is most unfortunate.
There are many lessons to be had in this. We all repeat, almost without thinking, the adage “change is never easy.” This is why we fear change, and why we shouldn’t. We all know there are changes we need to make in our professional and personal lives, but we don’t make them because we know it will be difficult and uncomfortable. The transition is a rickety rope bridge between two solid spaces. The side upon which we stand may be secure but the grass is a bit brown and dry, and life is predictable and boring. Ahead is lush greenery and the promise of excitement and fortune. The rope bridge spans a deep and cavernous gorge which fills us with fear. We must experience that fear and uncertainty as we traverse the bridge in order to attain the better life we know lies ahead. Regardless of whether this fear and discomfort is anticipated or not, many will either turn back or never venture out in the first place, settling instead for mediocrity.
Think about the changes you know you need to make in your life. You might feel you deserve a pay raise or a promotion, but in order to do that you need to have a conversation with your supervisor. There may be restructuring required within your department that requires making difficult decisions. Perhaps you have to end a relationship. The various processes we must undergo in order to facilitate these changes, we undertake with the full knowledge that it will not be comfortable and this requires courage.
There is a safety line on this bridge, however. Because we go into these changes expecting a period of difficulty, we can prepare for it. Formulate a “Strategic Plan” which will deliver you to your desired outcome. Work backwards from your goal to anticipate potential issues and areas which may require special preparation. This plan will reinforce the bridge making it safer and more comfortable to cross and will bring you to your goal with greater speed.
We can help you attain the skills you need to plan for change! Giant Leap Consulting will be conducting a webinar on Strategic Planning on April 20 at 2pm EST. Please follow the link for details.
http://giantleapconsulting.com/courageous-future-strategic-planning-webinar-opportunity/
Courageous Future: Strategic Planning Webinar Opportunity
Few things have the potential to galvanize an organization as much as a bold future. Giant Leap Consulting has been proud to provide a client-centered, skillfully facilitated strategic planning program that helps organizations define their meaningful, bold future. Setting a strong strategic direction for your organization is critical. Unfortunately, people think that strategic planning expertise is solely the domain of highly specialized, external consultants who have to bring their special brand of mojo. Fortunately, there are tools and frameworks that are easy to use and follow and do not require multiple PhDs to decipher. Giant Leap Consulting’s approach to strategic planning has benefited the National Science Foundation, Aldridge Electric, Georgia Center for Child Advocacy, Cayuse Technologies, and multiple research centers based at MIT, UC-Berkeley, Purdue, and Michigan State University to name a few.
This session will:
Present an agile and scalable strategic planning framework
Provide resources to contribute to a successful planning effort
Explain techniques to successfully sustain the impact of your strategic planning process
Demonstrate how to de-boringize the process so that your meeting is interactive and engaging
Highlight five critical mistakes to avoid
This webinar will be lead by Bill Treasurer and Laura Cohn, Giant Leap Consulting’s lead strategic planning team. Bill and Laura have thousands of hours of collective experience with strategic planning. Having worked with for-profit, non-profit, government agencies, academic institutions, and everything in between; there experience has helped them to refine a highly effective planning process that helps organizations define their bold future.
This webinar will be held on April 20, 2012 at 2:00 pm (Eastern). This is a free workshop we are making available to the friends of Giant Leap. To register or ask any questions, email us at – lshiver at giantleapconsulting dot com*
*we wrote out the email address to avoid getting spammed. When you write, format like a normal email address. Thanks!
Living the Life of a Filler
I can’t get enough of the human-interest stories that news programs produce. I think they are fascinating. These stories provide a glimpse into real lives, and they demonstrate the truth that every person has a story worth telling.
Thanks to the Today Show, I got to learn a little about Mr. Tyrone Curry. He is a Vietnam veteran, a high school janitor with 35 years on the job, the high school’s track coach, and the winner of a $3.4 million lottery.
There are many aspects of Mr. Curry’s story that I found fascinating to learn about, but the one theme that really jumped out to me was how focused he was on supporting other people. He’s spending $40,000 this summer to build a state of the art track field for his team. He wants to build a better tennis court complex to support the tennis coach and team.
One example soared though. One of his senior students lost his mom to a heart attack quite suddenly. The boy’s father isn’t around, and the honor student started to flounder. The young man was just going through the motions of life and didn’t see how his future could get better. And one day Coach Curry pulled him aside and walked down the track with him. In a few words, he reminded the boy that he wasn’t on his own. Mr. Curry is going to pay for this young man’s college education.
It seems to me that Mr. Curry understands the importance of supporting and encouraging other people. When Curry’s dream to become a teacher was cut short 35 years ago due to budget cuts, he found a way to stay within the education field by becoming a janitor and coach. He shifted his medium, but his purpose remained the same. Mr. Curry is a living example of what we would call a “Filler.” He looks for ways to encourage other people to succeed in the face of challenge, to be courageous, and gets so much fulfillment from that act of support.
I love these real life examples of how people support one another. Have you had a person encourage you at critical moments of your life? Tell us about your experience.
Also, if you want to learn more about Mr. Curry, head over here at MSNBC.
Courage at the Edge of Fear
As a volunteer with the Junior League of Asheville, I was able to work with a team of women to provide a job and life skills development class for women who are currently living in a homeless shelter. While the sense of crisis for the women has diminished as they are in a safe and stable temporary home, their anxiety was still high.
Their stories varied greatly. Some were college graduates while others dropped out of high school. Some had once had successful careers or had been in the military or had been stay at home moms. Many had survived abusive relationships. While there backgrounds were different, they were all focused on figuring out how to get back to stable, permanent housing.
After presentations on financial planning and management, resume writing, and interviewing; Laura engaged the women in a conversation about risk taking and courage. In took some of the women a little time, but each of them were able to identify a time they acted courageously. The idea that they could draw on past success when faced with a fearful situation resonated with them.
However, the idea that sparked the most excitement was encouragement. With ease, they each spoke of a grandmother, co-worker, or social worker who cared about them and worked hard to encourage them. As they spoke about the people who had been fillers in their lives, they recalled more examples of personal and professional courage. The group spoke about the opportunity there is to build an encouraging community within their temporary shelter that celebrates success and supports during setbacks.
The hard truth for these women is that a difficult road is before them. The opportunities before them will often come with high risk as they seek to meet their basic needs of safe shelter and consistent access to food. The stakes for them are so high, but freezing in the face of opportunity is even riskier.
These women have plans to go back to school, to get a new job, to gain independence and confidence, and to move out of the shelter. While the details of their life-changing opportunities might be different from yours, the heart at the center of the story is probably not that different. While building relationships with these women, I was reminded that courage demands something different from each of us, and the impact we can achieve when we choose to encourage, rather than discourage, can be an impact that reverberates well beyond our knowing.
Courage is Local
In every town in America there are mementos that connect the community to courageous heroes from the past. In one town it might be a sacred display honoring fallen veterans. In another it might be a plaque designating the spot where the local hero was born.
I’ve gotten to see a good number of these vestiges of courage while traveling on business. I’ve stood solemnly at the gravesite memorial of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, right next to the Ebenezer Baptist church where he did most of his preaching. Off the coast of North Carolina, at Cape Fear, I’ve read a plaque that points to the spot where a ship perished. Closer to home, in my hometown of Asheville, I’ve read the plaque that honors Kiffin Rockwell, an ace fighter pilot from World War 1.
Last week I got to do something really special, and it definitely connects to the idea of courage. I attended an event at Pearl Harbor, on the USS Missouri, the battleship where the Empire of Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. Dubbed “Mighty Mo”, the ship fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, suffered a direct hit to her starboard side during a Kamikaze raid, and even served during Operation Desert Storm after being reactivated in 1991. This ship is practically a floating museum of courage.
The USS Missouri is only one courage remnant that locals on the Hawaiian island of Oahu can draw inspiration from. There are plenty of others, and not just at Pearl Harbor. As with most communities, big and small, there are artifacts that honor courageous people. While in Hawaii, I also saw a statue honoring Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, a five-time Olympic swimmer and the person most credited with populating the sport of surfing, and another paying homage to King Kamehameha, who conquered and unified the Hawaiian Islands and established the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Courage is easy to find if you make finding it your goal. I promise you that you won’t have to look very far. Just look for the plaques, gravesites, dedications, walls, and monuments in your own home town. When you realize how much courage surrounds you, it becomes easier to put your own courage to work.
Bill Treasurer is the originator of the new organizational development practice of courage-building. He is the author of Courageous Leadership: A Program for Using Courage to Transform the Workplace, an off-the-shelf training toolkit that organizations can use to build workplace courage. He is also the author of the internationally bestselling book, Courage Goes to Work. Bill has led courage-building workshops for, among others, NASA, Accenture, CNN, PNC Bank, SPANX, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Learn more at www.couragebuilding.com.
