change Archives - Page 2 of 16

26
May 21
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Competence Evaporates Unless You Adjust

Tags : change competence pivot profession skill

Is it possible that competence evaporates? The process of losing your skill or an area of expertise over time, does it happen?

Assume you are a master sales person. You thrive on in-person, face-to-face interactions. You read the body language, tell a story or two, and ask questions about family and life right after a brief discussion of the weather. Your competence at selling is high.

Then a pandemic emerges and you can’t be with people face-to-face. Now it’s an avatar, an email, or a text message. You still believe you have high competence in selling, only every skill you once used to sell is nearly obsolete.

Evaporated, gone, useful perhaps, but the environment for selling has changed dramatically. The future means you may have to close the deal differently.

Competence Evaporates

The skills you build across time are earned. Often, earned the hard way, by hours and hours of doing, learning, and repeating.

Developing a high level of competence in any field doesn’t happen overnight.

Many people call themselves coaches in the workplace. Coaching is a profession that takes decades of careful practice and patience to hone the craft. You can read some books, watch some videos, and even go through specialized training, perhaps one-day earning an advanced certification.

Across time the methods shift. The social trends ebb and flow. The way of doing things slides.

Like a few drops of saline in a petri dish, things start to evaporate.

The competencies you acquire may be the foundational skills you need to move forward, yet many people hold on to those hard-earned methods for far too long.

When you want less evaporation of your competence, you’re going to have to do something new. You’re going to have to explore different things.

It’s a chance, and some risk, but getting left behind while you watch things evaporate isn’t ideal either.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

18
May 21
-

Adaptive Change Is Different From Innovation

Tags : adaptive change innovation new normal pivot

You recognize things are changing. Have you been experiencing adaptive change?

Many people, likely most people, realize that change is always happening. There are technology advancements, societal shifts, and even history that becomes understood in a different way.

Is there a status quo? How long does a status quo last? It is minutes, hours, a year or more?

There are pockets of people who want life exactly the way it was years ago. There are groups of people, the Amish come to mind, who believe the ways of the past are the pathways to the future.

In a world of constant change the riskiest place to be might be staying in the status quo.

What do you do? Do you adapt or do you innovate?

Adaptive Change

Many people are on the path to adapting. Change is happening. Sometimes too slow and sometimes too fast. In some cases, the expectation is to go back to the old way of doing things. It suggests that perhaps there isn’t a new normal.

Think of the cars of the 1990s, or older, on one hand, it seems not that long ago, on the other, the technology in newer automobiles is drastically different.

Is different better?

It may depend on who you ask. If you’re driving a brand-new car, as compared with one manufactured 20 or more years ago, you’ve adapted to change.

Sure, it’s still an automobile with four tires, but many things about its movement, suspension, comfort, and onboard tech are very different. Perhaps, you didn’t even notice.

It is true for your computing devices. From mechanical storage drives to static storage, to the cloud. As an end-user do you even realize where your data is being stored? If you are a smartphone user, probably not. You’ve just been going with the flow.

If you engage at nearly any level in society, your community, or your workplace, you’ve probably changed recently.

Adaptive change doesn’t make you an innovator. Yet, innovation is something someone is doing.

There is always a new normal.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
May 21
-

New Sheriff, What Happens When You Get One?

Tags : adapt change growth scale

There is a new sheriff in town and now what will you do? Of course, this is a metaphorical expression. What happens when you get a new boss or what happens when your client hires a new buyer?

People adapt. We’re a species who has survived because of adaptation. We adapt to change, to the situation, or sometimes to survive.

Start a new job, and you’ll likely adapt. Get a new boss, and you’ll likely adapt. When your long-term customer retires or moves on, you’ll have to adapt.

Is it really that simple?

Small Business Scale

Many small businesses fail when they attempt to scale. The very small company might accel in a very small marketplace but when they try to expand, the world seems to collapse around them.

The same is true for your workplace culture, the lingo, buzzwords, and ways of doing things. It might work really well within the small environment, but expansion or new company ownership might be devastating

When you’ve adapted to what the boss wants, how she likes the information, or how he expects the behavior, you’ve survived. You know the routine and can perform it with or without a drum roll.

Does it scale?

The small restaurant with seating for a few struggles when they increase the seating to 50, or 100 people. Same food, but something has changed.

Not everything scales by keeping the product or service exactly the same.

It is true for your performance on the job and its true for the small business enterprise.

New Sheriff

Have you encountered a new sheriff?

The trick is not always doing the exact same thing in the exact same style or with exactly the same product.

If your boss changes you may need to do something different. If the company you’ve done business with for years gets a new buyer, you may need to do something different.

Whether you’re trying to scale or navigate something new, something different might be exactly what you need.

The assumption of, it worked here, now make it scale, isn’t always the answer.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
Apr 21
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Escape Stuck and Change Your Future

Tags : change movement pivot stuck

Are you able to escape stuck? Have you ever had difficultly letting go of something that you know needs to go?

It might be anything. A pair of old shoes, jeans you wore a decade ago, a bad habit, or even a relationship. Are you holding on to something that you should let go?

Perhaps the opposite of change is the status quo. It is a place where most people like to hang out. It may feel safe and comfortable. Habits are hard to change. Good or bad, habits can become very sticky.

While it might sound silly, a few years ago I had to let go of an old washing machine. It was hard to see it go. We’d been through so much together. Our relationship lasted more than 20 years.

Now I’m stuck with a 1999 Chevy Tahoe. A lot of miles and the rust is tearing it down, but I still don’t want to let it go.

Sometimes we want something new so bad it is easy to break free. Throw it in the ground and bury it, done.

In other cases, we hold on too long.

Escape Stuck

Fear may be part of the problem. The unknown about what is next and what will be different. It’s true for so many things.

Yesterday in a seminar there was some discussion about leadership and culture. A participant expressed boldly, “It’s not the 1990’s anymore!” To me, it was an interesting perspective. I feel like I cut my management teeth in the 1990s and I’m proud of that, yet a workforce generation or two removed and it appears unwanted and not worthy.

At the same time. I came to realize that I’ve changed. I don’t suggest the same things that I use to offer as consideration for a solution. I would never suggest some of the behaviors or cultural attributes that seemed normal back then.

Are some businesses and organizations stuck? Are the people?

You may be more stuck than you realize, or you may be letting go and you don’t even notice it.

If you are still moving, you must not be stuck.

If you are stuck, now is the time to get something moving.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

02
Apr 21
-

Finding Certainty Is a Never-Ending Position

Tags : certainty change confidence psychology of work Tolerance

Finding certainty is one way to spend your energy. In an ever-changing world, it seems that certainty may be hard to come by. Yet, there still may be some things that you can be certain about. Change is one of them.

Many people set out to be certain. Low-risk is attractive but with little risk often not much is gained.

Confidence may be considered an aspect of certainty. Removing doubt and installing belief all seem to have linkages to being certain.

It is difficult to maintain the power of confidence while facing extreme criticism or ridicule. When there is a constant stream of new information, the difference between truth and lies, facts and opinions, and those who seek to see, in order to believe, all become blurred.

What is stopping you right now? Is it a lack of information or a lack of certainty?

Finding Certainty

It may be easier to find than you think.

A three-dimensional image is different from a two-dimension image. How things first appear are sometimes different after closer examination. The autostereogram is a perfect example.

Complexities surround human nature. The psychology of the work that we do is often hard to understand.

Driven by perceptions, expectations, and life experiences decisions are made and outcomes are realized.

What may be certain about every endeavor is that there will be an outcome.

In an uncertain world, doing something that produces a new outcome may be better than doing nothing at all.

If you live in South Carolina and you want to get to California by car, driving somewhere in a westward direction will put you closer. It may be driving to Nebraska or Texas, but one thing is certain, both of those are closer to California than South Carolina.

Certainty often exists in what you see and what you believe.

Sometimes the trick is having more confidence than doubt.

Often, that is where you find certainty.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

05
Mar 21
-

Learning Commitment Changes Your Job

Tags : change growth learning success

Commitment means commitment. It isn’t about a half-hearted approach. Having a learning commitment is often visible, and it’s always a game-changer.

Many small businesses start from a hobby, an interest, and lots of initiative. Some of those small businesses will grow very large, some not as much.

There are two reasons for the differences between small and large. The first is that the owner may not want to grow it big, and the second reason is that something gets lost in the commitment.

Although on a smaller scale, workplace employees have similar outcomes. Employees that are really committed to the mission often rise above the rest. Those approaching their work half-heartedly, not so much.

Many employees suggest that they are committed. Is that suggestion visible?

Learning Commitment

Spotting commitment really isn’t that difficult.

Committed employees study.

They study the actions and behaviors of role models. They also encourage and desire training, they study written materials, watch videos, read books, attend conferences, and are always committed to learning.

Change is an obstacle or a blessing. A hurdle to jump or an opportunity to capture.

Someone who is coasting backs away from obstacles and hurdles. The energy commitment is lacking, the drive towards creating more success doesn’t really matter.

If they’re on the clock, the clock continues to click and they are satisfied with that.

They are content and complacent.

Having a learning commitment is a game-changer. Each successive learning experience is a win. It’s a win for the organization and it’s a win for the employee.

You can always identify who’s committed.

They’re uncomfortable with coasting.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Mar 21
-

Workplace Commitment Results in Something

Tags : change change management commitment pivot strategy

The team doesn’t like the new announcement and psychologically they commit to finding ways to state that it won’t work. In contrast, they love the new announcement and push even harder for end-users to adapt to the new standard. Workplace commitment is often the difference between forward motion or being stuck.

Things are always changing. We’re in a world of constant change. If you are not changing, it is simple, you’re stuck.

Outside of values, ethics, and integrity, success for nearly every organization depends on forward motion.

In the early 1900’s people may have liked their ice box. Sticking with one today seems a little silly. In the 1950’s people in business offices were addicted to their typewriters. Around the turn of the century during the early 2000’s, many people only used cellular phones for shorter or on-the-road calls, not as a primary device.

Workplace Commitment

Outside of your box, outside of your frame, things are happening. Early adopters always have the benefit of the upside of the curve.

The upside of the curve carries risk. It carries a risk for how tall the curve will become, how flat it is on top, and how slowly it will start to down on the other side.

Everyone has a choice for which they will commit.

In most cases, they’ll either commit to some risk and forward motion, or they’ll commit to staying stalled. Stalled arguably, may also be seen by onlookers as decline.

It’s important to know your own strategy for tomorrow. What you commit to will impact not only your own fate but perhaps the fate of the origins of your paycheck.

New and improved may not always feel better, especially at first.

The refrigerator required electricity. I suspect this was thought of as a disadvantage by many.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

15
Feb 21
-

Lane Selection May Be a Form Of Strategy

Tags : change choose your lane entrepreneur pivot strategy

Are you staying in your lane? Lane selection for your career path may be more important than it seems.

Many people are excited about new opportunities, and for good reason. Boredom is a leading factor in workplace disengagement.

Have you ever been advised to stay in your lane?

Of course, it is not highway driving that I’m referring to, it is analogy about your job or career.

There are plenty of ways to expand and grow. Plenty of opportunities to take some risk, try something new, or move in a different direction. Yet, beyond the somewhat apparent risk of needing to hone new skills, there is another risk.

The risk of doing everything you do poorly.

An economic downturn may be as much to blame as an economic upturn. Both businesses and people alike are searching for what works best.

In a world of constant change, you may need to do more than just do things differently, you may have to do different things.

Lane Selection

You should make conscious choices and use specific strategies on your quest. Throwing a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks sounds appealing. Especially, when you can’t see a clear path. However, this often quickly leads to being a master of none.

Whatever you do, choose your lane. Make conscious decisions about direction shifts or portfolio additions.

Pivoting matters, it always matters, largely because nothing stays the same for long.

In every field, and in every business sector, there are people throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

This shouldn’t invite chaos. Choose your path, consciously, strategically, and don’t give up too soon.

Swerving benefits no one.

It’s reckless.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

08
Feb 21
-

Doing Work and Getting Stuff Done

Tags : career change doing work pivot

Are you doing work and getting a few things done? Is that what it takes? Is that all it takes?

People often talk about their work as a path for income. A means to an end.

Is that really you or do you want a little more?

Chances are good you’re interested doing a little more than just getting by. You may have some interest in supporting the mission of the team, helping to grow the business or even simply be recognized as a top performer. In other cases, you may have interest in growing your career. And for some, all of these things apply.

Everyone who has an interest in doing a little bit more can change their language to help them make a change. Yes, it may be that simple.

Changing your language has many benefits. It will not only change your outlook but may also change your levels of comfort and confidence.

Doing Work

Instead of simply, doing the work, what if you thought about it with a different goal? Doing the work means your goal is to finish the job. However, if your quest is to improve your work things start to change a little.

People often seek a change, they want to pivot, improve, do something better or different. It applies to everything from how they are perceived by their boss, peers, and direct reports; to bigger loftier goals or even a career move.

What you tell yourself will condition what happens next for you. If you go to work each day to simply do the work, you’re probably not going to make any kind of change. You’ll be stuck.

Instead, go to improve your work. Do it for yourself, your team, or the customer.

You’ll grow through the process of persistently working towards something more.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

03
Feb 21
-

Rebel Leaders May Make a Positive Impact

Tags : change growing learning rebel leaders rebellious

Are you a little bit rebellious? Are you one of the rebel leaders?

I’m not talking about law-breaking, unpeaceful protests, or insurrection. I’m talking about coloring outside the lines, bending a few rules, or going a slightly different direction because you believe it will result in a better outcome.

Many people believe that being a little bit of a rebel makes you a good leader.

Could it be true?

Innovation comes to mind. If you always follow the exact same guidelines or style, what changes?

Learning something new comes to mind. If you believe that there is more to discover, something new to try, and you’re willing to step a little beyond your comfort zone, are you leading while learning?

Making the project successful comes to mind. When you pull out all the stops, do the things naysayers caution against, and show up with a project completed, on-time, and with a happy customer, is that winning?

Rebel Leaders

There are many characteristics of leadership. Having high integrity and ethics certainly represent some of the characteristics. So are things like being persistent, working within the bounds of the rules and regulations, adhering to safety standards, and being respectful to everyone.

Remember though, that leaders lead. Leadership often comes with the cost of a little more risk. A different level of challenge and a mindset focused on completing the mission.

Leaders don’t ignore well-intended feedback, they welcome it. They are always striving to make things better and more efficient. They’re ready to improve profit margins, increase customer satisfaction and grow sales.

Not leading means you’re avoiding new ideas, shunning all feedback, and being so locked in that you never change. It is being stuck and cowering away because out of weakness and fear.

Just beyond the limits may be the next big thing.

Leaders lead.

They might also be just a little bit rebellious.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: change

May 21

-

Competence Evaporates

May 21

-

Adaptive Change

May 21

-

Small Business Scale

New Sheriff

Apr 21

-

Escape Stuck

Apr 21

-

Finding Certainty

Mar 21

-

Learning Commitment

Mar 21

-

Workplace Commitment

Feb 21

-

Lane Selection

Feb 21

-

Doing Work

Feb 21

-

Rebel Leaders

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