Engine For Change

Have you ever caught yourself in a meeting thinking, “How does that guy know about that and I don’t?”

Have you ever toured a new place and wondered, “Why didn’t my boss show me this sooner?”

Have you ever left training saying, “Why didn’t the company send us to this years ago?”

If you’ve had those moments, you’ve seen what you’re missing by waiting for others to drive you to learn.

You don’t have to wait.

You can drive your own learning.

There are lots of ways to drive your own learning, but if you’re more interested in steps that in multiple strategies, you can try these four steps.

Step 1: Choose to drive your own learning.  It really is that simple to start.

Step 2: Read.  You’ll have to read books if you want to learn at a fast pace.

Step 3: Create opportunities to see new things and meet new people.  This step varies depending on your strengths.  If seeing new things and meeting new people sounds awful to you, focus on finding a person who likes those things who’s willing to bring back all the best information to you.  It’s not an ideal set up, but it’s better than nothing.

Step 4: Find the training you need and figure out a way to get it. Often finding training is easy; figuring out a way to get it is harder.  If at first you’re told no, don’t give up.  Find another route.

Step 5: Practice with the books you’ve read, the people you’ve met, the places you’ve been and the things you’ve been told.  Only through practice will you get better at anything.

Are you willing to drive your own learning?

If you’re nodding at the computer screen, fabulous.  I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  If you want some hints or tips on Steps 2 through 5, let me know.

If you’re shaking your head, wondering if driving your own learning will make any difference for you, maybe hearing what it felt like for me to come to Step 1 and what I’ve done since, will push you off the fence.  You can check out my story below the fold.

If you’re not interested in driving your own learning, let me know if you change your mind.  I’ll be here.

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Through my work with large organizational change, I’ve learned that I need new terms to describe two very different change methods, driving change versus driving people to change.

I’ve found driving change produces both near and long term success while driving people to change sometimes creates near term results but rarely produces long term success.

With the difference in results, you would think most people trying to make a change would be driving change. Yet most  are daily driving people to change.

How can you tell which one you’re doing?  First you need to know the descriptions and definitions of each term.

I intend to make a sharp and immediate distinction between the term driving change and the term driving people to change.

Let’s picture something together.

You and 20 other people live in the middle of a huge forest.  Last night the forest was hit by a terrible storm.  The only road to get out of the forest was in bad repair before, but surveying the damage this morning you see newly downed trees and whole sections of road were washed out by the overflowing streams.  The goal is to get the 20 people and you  out of the forest.  You aren’t the boss.  You’re just one of the 21 people.  But, the boss has instructed you to get everyone out of the forest, including him.  What do you do? (more…)

Here’s a re-post of something I put up at my other blog.  There’s no link back, just a re-post.  Call this moving content from the old to the new.  As I got only minor comments on this last time I posted it, I’ll hide it behind the fold so if you really want to read it you can find it, but if you don’t it won’t hurt your scan of the page.  Enjoy:

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