tragedy of the commons

Individuals tend to act rationally in pursuing personal goals without fully considering that they might be disadvantageous to the system at the collective level. For example, during a heat wave, those people with air conditioners run them at maximum. But that behavior, in turn, may cause the power grid to overload such that nobody's air conditioners work. In change management, this means that although organizational goals may be laudable and desirable, not everyone will subscribe to them and change how they work for the common good. Again, we must focus especially on “What's in it for me?” to help individuals personally to adopt and use the change.

Al Lee-Bourke

10 Tips From Psychology Every Change Leader Should Know by Al Lee-Bourke. Prosci Blog. Accessed on August 4, 2022. 

talking about myself

Change is incredibly personal. And, as we know, organizational change is the sum of individual changes and making personal decisions to engage, adopt and use a new way of working. Overlook this critical fact at your peril. As psychologist Carl Jung said, "Even when I'm dealing with empirical data, I'm necessarily talking about myself." For me, this means we must focus on the Desire element of the ADKAR Model in particular. “Why should I change? What's in it for me to change?” Really focus on that.

Al Lee-Bourke

10 Tips From Psychology Every Change Leader Should Know by Al Lee-Bourke. Prosci Blog. Accessed on August 4, 2022. 

because they were inspired

Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired. For those who are inspired, the motivation to act is deeply personal. They are less likely to be swayed by incentives. Those who are inspired are willing to pay a premium or endure inconvenience, even personal suffering. Those who are able to inspire will create a following of people – supporters, voters, customers, workers – who act for the good of the whole not because they have to, but because they want to.

Simon Sinek

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. Penguin Publishing Group. 2009. p.6

I found what I loved

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Steve Jobs

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says: This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005. Stanford News. 

creating desire

As a basic principle, managers must first view the task of creating desire as more than managing resistance. Adopting a "resistance management" focus can take a business leader down a trail of reactive management actions that often turn into firefighting and damage control. In other words, you should not introduce a change and then wait to identify those groups or individuals who are resistant to that change. Rather, you should adopt those strategies and tactics that have been used by effective leaders of change that are positive and proactive. Your goal is not to drag along the unwilling and uncaring, with all your attention focused on the minority. Your objective is to create energy and engagement around the change that produces momentum and support at all levels in the organization.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. 2006. Prosci Research. p.79

A.D.K.A.R.

 

Awareness represents a person's understanding of the nature of change, why the change is being made and the risk of not changing. Awareness also includes information about the internal and external drivers that created the need for change, as well as "what's in it for me."

Desire represents the willingness to support and engage in a change. Desire is ultimately about personal choice, influenced by the nature of the change, by an individual's personal situation, as well as intrinsic motivators that are unique to each person.

Knowledge represents the information, training and education necessary to know how to change. Knowledge includes information about behaviors, processes, tools, systems, skills, job roles and techniques that are needed to implement a change. 

Ability represents the realization or execution of the change. Ability is turning knowledge into action. Ability is achieved when a person or group has demonstrated capability to implement the change at the required performance levels.

Reinforcement represents those internal and external factors that sustain a change. External reinforcements could include recognition, rewards and celebrations that are tied to the realization of the change. Internal reinforcements could be a person's internal satisfaction with his or her achievement or other benefits derived from the change on a personal level.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. 2006. Prosci Research. p.2,3

when we have a vision of what we can become

How do we develop desires? Few will have the kind of crisis that motivated Aron Ralston, but his experience provides a valuable lesson about developing desires. While Ralston was hiking in a remote canyon in southern Utah, an 800-pound (360 kg) rock shifted suddenly and trapped his right arm. For five lonely days he struggled to free himself. When he was about to give up and accept death, he had a vision of a three-year-old boy running toward him and being scooped up with his left arm. Understanding this as a vision of his future son and an assurance that he could still live, Ralston summoned the courage and took drastic action to save his life before his strength ran out. He broke the two bones in his trapped right arm and then used the knife in his multitool to cut off that arm. He then summoned the strength to hike five miles (8 km) for help. What an example of the power of an overwhelming desire! When we have a vision of what we can become, our desire and our power to act increase enormously.

Dallin Oaks

"Desire," General Conference. April 2011

originated in the soul of the universe

...."whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth." ...."And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist, HarperCollins 1993. p.23

a lot of empty yesterdays

You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.

Professor Harold Hill, character in The Music Man (1957) by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey, as quoted in Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Joy in the Journey,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 84–87

the smallness of his wants

It is not the greatness of a man’s means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.


William Cobbett
Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, Volumes 67-68. 1829

a realistic sense of magnitude

One of the cliches of the campaign season is that a candidate has to want the job badly, to burn with ambition, to have “fire in the belly.” Otherwise, why elect someone to the demanding task of being president? Surely the first criteria is to want to be president very, very much.

The biblical model of leadership suggests otherwise. One of the striking features of leadership in the Hebrew bible is how often the people who become leaders don’t wish to be. When God first comes to Moses at the burning bush, Moses contrives a series of excuses—I don’t speak well, the people won’t listen to me—before he flat out asks God to simply choose someone else. God leaves Moses no choice, forcing him to shepherd the people out of Egypt.

The prophet Jeremiah has a similar reaction: He desperately does not wish to be a prophet, but finds that God’s word is like a “fire shut up in my bones,” and despite his desire he can’t seem to hold back from prophesying as God wishes. And perhaps most dramatically, the story of Jonah tells of a prophet who literally tries to flee from God only to be swallowed by a large fish that spits Jonah out on to dry land to prophesy and save the city of Nineveh.

Each is ultimately pressed into service, along with many others who are hesitant to become leaders. Yet once in the position of leadership, they serve effectively and in many cases, with astonishing devotion. The Bible seems to assume that reluctance in the face of a great task is the natural reaction of a healthy spirit, and that pursuing leadership is often a disfigurement of ego and not an essential attribute of authority.

So instead we have a parade of people who are certain they can solve all the problems of the world if we give them a vote. The biblical days when Samuel did not recognize that he was hearing God’s voice, or when Isaiah worried that he was of unclean lips—the age when leadership was tentative, hesitant and humble—has given way to an age when leadership is certain, declarative and boastful.

To doubt whether one can do a demanding job is to have a realistic sense of its magnitude. When candidates are convinced they will be great, I wonder not only if they overestimate themselves, but if they do not recognize the difficulties of the task. In our history we have seen certainty crumble into chaos. Better to elect someone who sees the enormity of the challenge and is humble in the face of being called to serve than someone who is certain of triumph.

Rabbi David Wolpe

"The Best Leaders Are the Ones Who Don’t Ask for the Job" Time. 10/7/2015