Every Christian leader is called to lead change (transformation) in the lives of people, both personal and corporate. As Christian leaders, our credibility, our success or failure, often hinges on how we lead a process of change/transformation. In my March 28, 2010 post to GEORGIA GROWN I promoted several books that could benefit leadership growth, but I’d like you to take a second look at one of those books that provides especially powerful and critical insights on how you can successfully lead people into and through change. That book is entitled “Switch “ by Chip and Dan Heath.
The first chapter explains, "In this book, we argue that successful changes share a common pattern. They require the leader of change to do three things at once: To change someone's behavior, you've got to change that person's situation (in order to cope with the fact that change) is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion...If you want people to change, you must provide crystal clear direction [because what] looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity."
The Heaths love metaphors! The most important of these are the Rider (our rational side), the Elephant, (our emotional and instinctive side) and the Path (the surrounding environment in which change initiatives will be conducted). The challenge is to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path to make change more likely, "no matter what's happening with the Rider and Elephant...If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don't have lots of power or resources behind you."
“Switch” makes three important observations about change that lead us to three things we MUST do to make change happen:
1st – It might look like a problem, but it’s really a “situation”.
Situational forces can shape people’s behavior. We can make the change easier and remove some of the friction created by the situation. The Path needs shaping.
2nd - It might look like laziness, but it’s really exhaustion.
“When people try to change things, they’re usually tinkering with behaviors that have become automatic, and changing those behaviors requires careful supervision by the Rider. The bigger the change you’re suggesting, the more it will sap people’s self-control. And when people exhaust their self-control, what they’re exhausting are the mental muscles needed to think creatively, to focus, to inhibit their impulses, and to persist in the face of frustration or failure. In other words, they’re exhausting precisely the mental muscles needed to make be change.” The Elephant needs motivation.
3rd – It might look like resistance, but it’s really a lack of clarity.
Often we share what the change will look like with little mention of what exactly we actually want people to do to create that change. We leave people wondering, “What should I be doing right now to obtained the change we are desiring?” The Rider needs direction
Switch uncovers methods and thinking that help you direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path; constructively dealing with the issues we confront when staring down the need to make a change.
