It’s resolution time: lose weight, get fit, stop smoking, reduce stress, play more golf, spend more family time, read more. At work it’s about strategizing, setting goals and targets, making plans: to become more innovative, launch new products, increase sales, reduce headcount, improve customer service.
What all these grand intentions have in common is the need for change in our behaviour. You can’t get different outcomes from the same old inputs. And there’s the rub. Skills and competencies aren’t so impossible to change. With some effort you’ll learn the new computer system; and your golf will improve – a little.
But often the behaviour you need to change is part of your customary way of life or is regulated by the policies and procedures of the organisation. It might be linked to deeply help personal beliefs and values or is entrenched in a culture. Maybe it’s a pattern of living and working ingrained over a lifetime.
Change at these levels isn’t easy. You really gotta wanna. It’s the strength of the want that fuels your energy, creativity and perseverance. And it’s what keeps you going when you’re scared: scared that you might fail – or that you might succeed.
What do you really really want to achieve this year? Nothing will change until you can answer that question with conviction.
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