I think it\u2019s safe to say that from time to time, we\u2019re all dissatisfied with or upset about some aspect of our lives. We find ourselves wondering why we\u2019re not further along in our career, why we didn\u2019t get that big promotion that went to so-and-so instead, why we haven\u2019t \u201cdone as well\u201d as a sibling or close friend, yadda, yadda, yadda.<\/p>\n
Now here\u2019s the thing: at the risk of overgeneralizing, I think the chances are that what upsets us the most in these situations is not the specific \u201cfailure\u201d in question, but the fact that our expectations\u2014and the expectations of others\u2014have not been met. In other words, in many cases the problem isn\u2019t so much that we\u2019re not further along in our career, for example; the problem is that our parents or our spouse or our friends\u2014and worse yet, we ourselves\u2014expect<\/em> that we should be further along!<\/p>\n In my professional role, I\u2019ve done a lot of coaching and counseling, with people at every stage of their career, from young people just starting out to top executives not that far from retirement. And most of them, including those highly successful executives, almost always express this kind of dissatisfaction about something. Something that has gone wrong for them. Or something that hasn\u2019t happened fast enough. Or\u00a0 something that they really wanted to happen, but that probably isn\u2019t going to happen at all.<\/p>\n But most of the time, when I ask those people how those unmet expectations were set in the first place\u2014where they came from\u2014they rarely have a clear answer.\u00a0 I sometimes think about this in terms of the \u201cBook of Shoulds.\u201d You know, that unwritten book that most of us nonetheless seem to carry around in our head, the one that prescribes where we should be at every stage of our lives. The book that sets those unspoken expectations that have such a powerful effect on our sense of who we are, what we can aspire to achieve, and what we\u2019ve actually accomplished.<\/p>\n And the thing about the Book of Shoulds is that it covers a whole lot of terrain. In this blog I write often about the challenge of creating real and lasting organizational change, whether the organization is a small unit or a global enterprise. And believe me when I say that the Book of Shoulds definitely comes into play here.<\/p>\n In my experience, efforts to create significant organizational change almost always happen too slowly for the organization\u2019s senior leaders. \u00a0I\u2019ve been involved in many complex change initiatives, at many organizational levels, and I\u2019ve had leaders say to me, \u201cWe\u2019ve been working at this thing for a year now, and we still haven\u2019t\u00a0 moved the needle. How long is this going to take?\u201d Or \u201cSure we\u2019ve made some progress, and I know we started in the bottom quartile, but why haven\u2019t we made it into the top quartile by now? We must be doing something wrong, because it ‘should’ be happening faster.\u201d<\/p>\n Who says \u201cit\u201d should happen faster? All too often it\u2019s the Book of Shoulds, rather than any real understanding of how change happens. In fact, the research shows that even the best orchestrated organizational change or engagement efforts takes time. In the very beginning, you may see very little progress, as the change initiative starts to penetrate the organization. (If you chart that progress, the graph will often show the classic \u201chockey stick\u201d profile.) Beyond that, a good rule of thumb is one year for every layer of management between the CEO and the front line manager for a major cultural or engagement change to occur\u2014and really become established.\u00a0 Five levels, five years.<\/p>\n Of course that doesn\u2019t mean you won\u2019t see progress long before that. It\u2019s those signs of progress that you need to capture and tell stories about. Publicize them widely throughout your organization, whether that\u2019s the whole company, a division, or a department or work unit. Create heroes of those who are leading the way and doing great work.<\/p>\n The bottom line is that organizational change is hard. Successful organizational change takes time, and many change efforts fail because expectations aren\u2019t set correctly or managed well. So use the facts to set and manage them\u2014and toss the Book of Shoulds aside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think it’s safe to say that from time to time, we’re all dissatisfied with or upset about some aspect of our lives. We find ourselves wondering why we’re not further along in our career, why we didn’t get that big promotion that went to so-and-so instead, why we haven’t “done as well” as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}