Next Is Now by Lior Arussy

Author:Lior Arussy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

six

ANALYZE IT!

I don’t know about you, but each time I step on the scale, I face the truth. And I hate it. I gained weight by ignoring what I ate and neglecting to exercise more. The facts are staring at me in neon. But knowing the truth doesn’t really mobilize me to take the right action. (In fact, I often take the wrong action—by reaching for the closest comfort food I can find.)

While I asked you to suspend your fears and emotions during Step 1: Face it!, I will now ask you to turn them loose. Without understanding how your emotions are holding you back from changing, you cannot successfully move forward.

A rational decision alone will not turn you into a champion for change. Your mind will still resist change, and the closer you get to it, the more aggressive the resistance will become. (How do I know? Because if this weren’t the case, you wouldn’t need this book.)

This phase is arguably the most difficult. Few of us want to admit that our “soft,” emotional brains are refusing to ignore the hard facts. No leadership team wants to accept that their well-researched, promising strategy is subject to employees’ emotions. “It’s business, not personal,” they want to scream.

But the reality is very different. Our emotions often make the choice about whether innovative strategies are adopted or not. Emotions matter. They are the bloodline of change.

Traditional approaches to change begin by asking: “What would enable success?” We, instead, ask: “What stops people from embracing change?”

This means taking our focus off the future and placing it on the past.

More often than not, our previous experiences with seemingly similar changes cloud our ability to see a proposed change clearly. Which means: presenting a beautiful vision of the future will not by itself make us more open to change.

Before developing new skills, we must develop emotional readiness.

Many people find this approach to change challenging. Maybe we’ve been putting off a change for a while, and we fear that if we don’t jump in fully, the change won’t stick. Or perhaps we’re driving a change initiative and want our team on board ASAP.

If you’re feeling that urgency, take note: our experience has shown that a failure to address the emotional aspect of change often leads to delays. The new behaviors are short-term and impact is incremental. The plan or program will not deliver the desired results.

At this point in the process of adopting a new strategy or process, you or your team should have reviewed the facts and gotten clarity about the implications of changing or staying the same. Yet you’re still probably grappling with some creative and persuasive arguments. Let’s see if you recognize any of the following excuses:

“No way! This is stupid. It’ll never work.” This “best defense is a good offense” approach seeks to confront the change head-on with complete denial. If you’re calling an idea stupid, are you really giving it a chance? Probably not.

“If people really wanted it, they would have told us.

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