Leading for Change

I can still hear his words like it was yesterday. On an ever-so-regular basis, my college coach Mel Tjeerdsma would stand before our team and challenge us with these thoughts:

“Don’t buy the lie that you are staying the same. You are either going this way (with a finger pointed to the sky), or this way (with a finger pointed toward the ground).”

The message was loud and clear. We are either getting better, or we are getting worse. If we aren’t pushing ourselves to grow, we will succumb to the natural consequences of atrophy.

Complacency. Satisfaction. To most coaches, these 4-syllable words might as well be 4-letter words! That’s because coaches are leaders, and leaders very quickly become frustrated with an attitude of contentment.

Very few things have the capacity to stunt our growth like an attitude of contentment does.

When complacency begins to take us in the wrong direction, how do we as leaders change the trajectory? We must create discontent. Where there is no discontent, there is no change. But remember, discontent by itself is not enough to produce the change we want. We also must have a clear and compelling vision for the future and practical next steps that begin moving us toward that future.

All growth requires change and all change requires a growth mindset. Change is uncomfortable. Therefore, all meaningful change is a process. But, also remember this… all meaningful change is worth it!

The process we like to use is called the “Formula for Change,” which was created by David Gleicher in the early 1960s and refined by Kathie Dannemiller in the 1980s.

Here’s how it looks:

C = D x V x FS > R

Here’s what the letters mean:
Change – What specific change do you want to make? What do you want to fix? Stop? Start? Learn?
Discontent – What’s wrong? What’s broken? What is it about the present situation that is driving the desire to change?
Vision – You cannot create what you cannot see. What is the preferred vision of the future worth creating?
First/Next Steps – To implement the change you identified, what are the first/next few steps you need to take?
Resistance – Who might want to stop this from happening and why? What can you do to possibly move them to letting or even making it happen?

Where there is no vision but lots of methods, there is make-work.
Where there is vision but no understanding of method, there is frustration.
Where there is neither vision nor method, there is apathy.

Where the vision is strong, and the method is actually effective and workable, then transformation can happen.