Comments

Today, everybody is in service. Period. Therefore, every individual MUST think he/she is a PSF and strive towards BOTH personal & professional excellence.

Posted by K.Sriram at August 23, 2007 11:37 PM

‘Re-invention’ and words like that are catchy and gimmicky and they serve a purpose in getting us to pay attention to the message behind the word.

What it is surely about however is having a mindset individually that allows us to see change as not only possible but essential. I am not one of those people who believe we all possess that mindset. I don’t and most people I know don’t. As my friend told me after he had been to a 20 year school reunion party ‘The only person who hadn’t changed was me.’ There are those who say they welcome and love change and then there are remaining 95% (probably under estimated) of the population.

I’m sorry but the facts are in all the work I’ve ever done around change I find there is ALWAYS resistance from the majority until they see the need for change. I believe that is a NORMAL reaction. That is not to say people remain anti-change but the initial reaction is usually negative. This is all about individual mindset and not about sexy words and some false assumption that we are all just ready to change because someone has written that it is a good thing to ‘re-invent’ ourselves.

Forgive me as an English sporting nut but I don’t understand the US sport jargon in the article but it seems to me this guy simply recognised he had to change. And so he did – an individual choice given his positive mindset about the need to change – I bet he didn’t read a management book to make that decision.

I don’t think we create any added value in business by TELLING people they must change. What we should do is create an environment in organisations (through leadership and example) where change is part of ‘the way we do things’ rather than change being seen as some marginal activity that happens away from the core of the business and is delivered mystically by buying in expensive management consultants who use sexy words like re-invention and yet they do no more than the organisation could do itself.

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 24, 2007 4:52 AM

The "slutter," huh? Trevor, "slut" is American slang for a woman who is very promiscuous. A prostitute who does not charge a fee, more or less. Interesting choice of a name for a baseball pitch.

You are spot on regarding change management, Trevor. I teach change management and I HATE change -- as I tell my students, that's the main reason I am qualified to teach it! They take me seriously when I teach them about embracing change and leading change because they know I'm in their shoes and not some cheerleader for "the power of change." (Who Moved My Cheese was one of the worst business books ever published. It has done more to screw up otherwise mentally healthy people in the workplace than anything else in the past fifteen years.)

Posted by Mike at August 24, 2007 6:16 AM

Go Sox! Papelbon can call his pitches whatever he wants, so long as they are also called strikes!

Corny I know, but I can't pass up a Sox comment.

Thanks, Cathy!

Posted by rachel at August 24, 2007 1:04 PM

I think it;s a big stretch to say Papelbon has "reinvented" himself. He's simply added a new tool to his toolbox of pitches. His mission, vision, goals, strategy, and core values haven't changed. We all need to continue to learn and increse our skill sets--but that's not reinvention.

Posted by Paul B. Thornton at August 24, 2007 3:33 PM

Talking about excellence - can this be real?

http://covertconsultant.blogspot.com/

Posted by Mike at August 25, 2007 4:08 PM

I rest my case Mike :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 25, 2007 4:23 PM

Re-invention, or even adding more tools to the toolbelt is difficult. I've done this several times in my life. The support of this is a pretty recent social trend. Even then, in many circles, it's seen as being "flighty".

Some people are content with what they have (I'm referring to intangibles) and who they are. Fantastic.

For others, there is the dream of doing something else. Bankers want to be bakers, bakers want to be tour guides, whatever the dream is, we can be sure that someone is dreaming it. Of the people in this group, there are those who risk possible failure to persue the dream, those who simply enjoy dreaming, sometimes complaining, but never willing to risk enough to see the dream through, and those who may feel lost on where to begin to make the change. For those with a spouse and children, this becomes difficult as the impact is usually economic and is shared within the immediate social structure. Even as a single person, this is difficult. Making the jump can result in isolation from friends and family. If the decision to do so is later in life and you happen to be a woman, people wonder why one would prefer to persue that then to settle down and have a family. My recent experience in "adding another tool to my toolbelt" lends me to believe that most people struggle in this space.

Then there are those who seem to defy the odds and blaze forward, persuing their dreams, sometimes failing in the process but always picking themselves up and restarting with seemingly unlimited passion.

I am lucky to know people across the board. There are traits to admire in each scenario. The simplicity and peace that seems to come with self-actualisation is noteworthy (Maslow spoke much of it). The struggle of the group in the middle is a place that I have been and I am sure, will revisit. The chutzpah displayed in the latter group is a trait that I admire and reinforce every day.

Posted by Mimi at August 27, 2007 7:14 AM

Trevor, I didn't post the comment with the link to the consultant's website, but I did check it out. I hope I never have the misfortune to work WITH someone like that, work LIKE someone like that, or HIRE someone like that. The author of that blog is a Loser with a capital L and a Whiner with a capital W.

Posted by Mike (Original Mike) at August 27, 2007 10:07 AM

You have been tagged for The Personal Development List. (See my site for details), I would love for you to participate.

Posted by Priscilla Palmer at August 28, 2007 7:04 PM

Reinvention is a critical skill for all of us. On the subject of change - I get involved in change a lot, both as a manager and as a coach, and one of the things that worries me about change programs (and cheese moving manuals!) is the automatic assumption that people resisting change are wrong and that the people initiating the change are right. The whole business then becomes and exercise in overcoming resistance to change and "working people through the stages of change" etc.

Quite often the people on the front line actually know what is going on and it is bone headed managers who are pushing the wrong thing. Resistance to that change doesn't help because management works harder to overcome that resistance ("it's a shame that not all the people could make it on the journey"). Generally people are not equiped to help the manager flex the change to really suit the need and managers are poor at exploring resistance.

By supporting reinvention right down at grass roots level then the change comes in a natural way with values, respect, knowledge etc.

I find with my coaching that the average individual is capable of amazing things - the challenge is that the average individual usually is woefully ill equiped to "project manage" their own change process.

Posted by PaulH at August 29, 2007 5:57 AM

Amen and ditto Paul.

I say front liners know all the answers and if managers have a job at all in 2007 it is to simply to make the job of front line staff easier.

In 2007 'Managing people' is an extremely patronising statement in my opinion – come to think of it, it was always a patronising statement.

We manage ‘things’ we don’t ‘manage’ people.

In all my years as a manager in healthcare although my job description said I ‘managed people’ I don’t think I ever 'managed' anyone - they 'managed' themselves.

The best thing a manager can do is keep well out of the way of people trying to do value added work direct with customers and let them get on with it. The manager is maybe needed very occasionally if front line staff themselves make the decision they need some help.

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 29, 2007 7:33 AM

I think that the key thing in reinvention is action and persistence. As an Englishmen, I don't know baseball, but I do understand cricket. Over the weekend I read that a famous Australian cricketer, Richie Benaud, once spent over a year practicing and perfecting his "flipper" before bowling it for the first time in a match.

To me it is this discipline, focus, persistence, desire, that makes "reinvention" possible.

Posted by Stuart Cross at August 29, 2007 3:00 PM

Stuart, yes!!!
You should read a book Tom mentions often, Mastery, by George Leonard. He uses learning tennis as an example, and the way he describes it, it takes years before one gets to "play."

Posted by cathy mosca at August 31, 2007 6:11 PM

Re-invention.Yes!
So thats the word. The word about finally letting go and doing what you love. Or changing your style. Or the way you dress. Even your new pair of red jeans.
So much about ressistance to change, but isnt that natural. Dont we all wish to break free (remember the Queen song) the shackles of life. To be in the same job and same company - for a long time - that would be boring. (who said it, Jack Welch ?)
So reinvention, redifining yourself, your tastes, is all about having fun! with yourself. And some people are more interesting, with more interesting lives than others, I say.

Posted by Gaurav Sethi at September 5, 2007 8:51 AM