I have an observation. Change – really changing in almost any way – is really hard. And rare.
The observations are endless. People lose weight – and gain it back. People start exercising – and two years later, have pretty much quit. You remember the Heath brothers terrific book: Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard. Well, all change is hard. And the bigger the change, the harder it is to change.
And, if the change is a change of view, a change of “stance” — an “I was wrong” change — that change is especially costly. It requires genuine humility. And such a change might lead to (probably will lead to) a loss of “place” in a community. You can go from hero to pariah in a heartbeat.
I thought of all this as I read a post about Diane Ravitch and her new “stance,” and her use of new media. A while back, I presented a synopsis of Ms. Ravitch’s important book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education at the Urban Engagement Book Club for CitySquare. I follow her on Twitter, and she linked to this article: New Media, New Public Intellectuals by P. L. Thomas, from his blog “Becoming Radical.” (“Becoming” – great word). Here’s an excerpt from the post:
At the beginning of January 2010, I received an email prompting me to watch a video of Diane Ravitch making a speech. My knee-jerk reaction was to delete the email because I had long rejected Ravitch’s work, associating her with the standards/testing movement and a traditional view of literacy that I firmly refuted.
Instead I clicked the link and was quickly puzzled, wondering who this Diane Ravitch was and what had happened to the Ravitch I had walked out on at a National Council of Teachers of English session several years before. Ravitch’s talk was so compelling I sought out her email, sent her an apology, and within the hour received a reply.
Diane and I exchanged a few emails; she was gracious and open about her recent change in stances related to public education reform (all detailed in her popular and influential book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.
Whether you like her change from her earlier point of view to her current point of view is almost beside the point. Think about the fact that she changed her point of view. And then, think about her new set of skills – an equally important change. Again, from the post:
What is particularly interesting about Ravitch 2.0, however, is that once she expressed considerable and distinct changes in her stances on education reform and policy—again, all presented in traditional format, a book—Ravitch also embraced the new media by establishing herself on Twitter (where she is approaching 60,000 followers) and eventually committing to regular (often multiple times a day) blogging on her own site.
So, she changed her stance, and she changed her “work practice,” greatly expanding her platform.
Now, in companies and organizations throughout the land, there are plenty of folks who need to change their point of view, their stance, and their work processes and practices. Remember the adage from John Henry Newman: “To grow is to change, and to have changed often is to have grown much.”
Here are a couple of “lessons” for us all:
#1 – Ask yourself this question (maybe pretty regularly): what could you be wrong about?
Is there a stance you currently hold that you should question? If you question it, and discover you are wrong (and, there is a pretty good chance that you are wrong about some stance you hold), then admit you’ve been wrong, and embrace that new stance called for by the evidence.
#2 – Is there a way you are working that is not adequate to the times?
Ms. Ravitch needed a new platform. It was available—but she had to learn how to use it. So… she did.
For those of us who did not grow up digital, tweeting and blogging and instagramming and… all seem a bit overwhelming. And, tomorrow’s platform(s) may be even more bewildering. But, learn we must. Otherwise, our “voices” will truly be voices crying in the wilderness.
In other words, a messenger with a message needs an audience. And the audience has to be found, and communicated with, clearly, loudly, repetitively.
So, whatever your job is, there are always job “skills’ that are required for every job in this current era, like: time management skills, and critical thinking skills, and ability-to-interact-well-with-others skills. Maybe it is time to add this to the list: the ability to change, and keep changing, skills.
{Rather obvious note: I, too, am in the population that needs to be able to change. I suspect that I too am wrong about a few things. In other words, we all need to join the “I need to make some changes” club}.
First Friday Book Synopsis 