This morning I have more questions than answers. I’ve been thinking about change and why everyone, myself included, thinks we need to change something. Maybe we do, but what if we don’t need to. What if we need to stop focusing on change management and instead focus on adapting and accepting what is?
I posed a question on FaceBook over the weekend to friends and family. I asked, “If you could change one thing about your boss, it would be…?”
The overwhelming answer was that the respondent would change themselves and not the boss. I admit, that would have been my answer too. The more I thought about it though, what if you just accept the boss, flaws and all. What if you just accept your family members, your friends, your colleagues for exactly the way they are?
Think about yourself for a moment. Would you say you are happy with the way you look, with your health and fitness, or even the amount of sleep you get? Assume you think you need to lose 10- 20 pounds. What if instead of fretting each day about it, going on diets to lose the weight, then gaining it back again and again, what if you just accepted yourself the way you are? Maybe you are supposed to be that weight. Maybe you are supposed to feel the way you do.
Like I warned you at the beginning, today I have more questions than answers. Are we too driven to change? Can we ever be happy with the way things are? Can you just adapt to what “is”?
2 Comments
Trish; I think you missed the ball on this one; I can buy into accepting the flaws in your boss and adapting to those flaws and learning how to manage your relationship with your boss in spite of those flaws. I can even buy into accepting the extra 10 lbs; but what I can’t buy into is accepting the flaws and weaknesses in our children and our employees. We have a moral and civic responsibility to help our children to become the best that they can be. What kind of a parent would we be if you let your child eat whatever they want, do whatever they want, etc.
More to my point is in the workplace, if we are responsible for people, our employer has entrusted us with leading and developing our people; should we accept anything less than their best effort. As leaders we are entrusted with the responsibility of putting the right people in the right roles to accomplish the task for which we have been charged.
It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
Isaac Disraeli
Best;
Dan
@Dan- Thanks for weighing in. I can see your point about children, but disagree on the employees. We can guide them but they are adults and ultimately responsible for their own behavior and reactions.