Don't Ever Change Babe...!

Don't Change - Why You Should Avoid Organizational Change 
 
Arlington, VA - May 15 2006 - Financial advisor, Kay R. Shirley quoted in The Washington Post (5/7/06) said that many of her client’s portfolios have been destroyed by pride. “There’s this ‘I’m different’ feeling. . . People see mistakes others have made, and they think they’re immune or it’s not going to happen to them. I advise my clients to, when they’re considering an investment, double your emphasis on the negative and halve you’re your interest on the positive, and see if your judgment would be the same.” Now she tells me.

 

This advise – which comes from the relatively new field of behavior economics -- can teach us something about leading change.

 

Consider this: only about one-third of all major changes in organizations actually are worth the effort. Most people I work with can tell you exactly why most of these changes fail. It’s resistance – and they can tell you why resistance comes up and how it destroy us otherwise decent ideas. And yet, they somehow believe that they can ignore what they know about resistance and make this change work.

 

I like Shirley’s suggestion. The next time you or I consider a major change we could ask ourselves: what if the worst that could happen was actually twice as bad as we imagine – and what if the benefits were only half of what we anticipate? Would we go ahead? Or might these simple questions cause us to slow down and examine this change more closely. I didn’t think so, but I thought it was worth a shot.

 

Rick Maurer
author of Beyond the Wall of Resistance, Why Don't You Want What I Want?, Building Capacity for Change Sourcebook, and advisor to organizations on leading change 
 
(rick@beyondresistance.com)
Maurer & Associates
Arlington, VA  
Phone : 703 525-7074
Fax : 703 525-0183 

Ear Full of Stones

Physical Existence never ceases to amaze and surprise me. Tonight I learned that we have small stones in our ears that move when we do and affect our sense of balance.

 

I was in the bathroom this evening when a spider strolled in and started climbing the wall. My first thought was "Hello? You're not going to find much food in here, and if the cats spot you, you're big enough that they are not going to let you get away if they can help it.". Then I thought that it would take many of that size to make a mouthful. This was like most, pretty much all legs, but not like the Daddy Long-Legs. Average I guess.

 

I got a glass and postcard and did the arachnid "catch and release" thing.

 

(hris

Flash to Black

There is a street that runs next to our town home complex. On the other site of the street about half the block is just athletic field. soccer, baseball, tennis, etc. It's a large area, but I almost never see anyone there. Maybe it's just used while everyone sleeps....?

 

Last week it caught fire and burned. I smelled smoke that day, but did not hear a fire trucks that I remember. It must have been the next day when I had to go out and noticed that the hill did not look right. I drove slowly around one site of the block. The fire was out, but I saw several people just staring at the blackened area, and I wondered if they were trying to imagine they lived in California, not Minnesota. Just about the entire half of the block was blackened.

 

Then it rained for three days.

 

(hris

Please define "mouthfull"

I get lists of 10s of thousands of expired domains every day. I don't look at all of them, but I do have to look at some, and last week I had one of those moments where it was like a light was shining on a single domain name: Mouthfullofspiders.com.

So I can't lay claim to inventing the domain name. Someone else did that and I very much admire their creativity, or sickness as it may be. I would like to know the history of the domain someday. Was it ever a real site? Was it just a blog like this one?

I like this domain because it can be so many different things to so many different people. Did you know there is a type of fish that keeps it's fry in it's mouth for some period of time to protect them? So the image is not so much one of spiders invading an oral cavity with harmful intent. Or one where spiders are breeding/hatching in a place most unlikely. No, we really cannot be sure and should not judge too quickly until we can acquire more information.

It's really the quantity of the spiders that I am disturbed by, not the location. Is it a nasty little swarm of pinhead-sized crawlers? Thousands really, that have found themselves in a damp, dark spot? Or just a few large eight-legers? It's plural, so their has to be at least two. Maybe two of the large kind...? Yeah, just two spiders and that's all that will fit. Heck, they might not even had enough space to turn around...

MFOS is about surrealism I guess. It's a creative outlet with no useful purpose or commercial potential AFAIK.
(hris