October 19, 2016

The Best Kind of Goal for Managing Change


I attended a workshop recently which was about change and how people deal with it. My goal in attending was mainly to learn more about myself and how I react to change that I didn’t originate (that is, a change imposed upon me).

I learned much from this workshop. One key point was to focus on learning instead of on performance during such a time of forced change.

Here is a tip I found useful: If your first reaction to something unfamiliar is, “I can’t do that,” instead say, “How do I learn to do that?”

The course taught*: “When facing a challenge, some people adopt performance goals which focus on demonstrating a certain level of competence. Others adopt learning goals which focus on increasing their capability. Learning goals are generally more helpful than performance goals during periods of change.

People with learning goals tend to see setbacks as information about the effectiveness of their strategies and become motivated to keep trying. They understand that learning new skills often requires going through a phase of awkwardness, confusion and failure.”

Knowing that on the other side of confusion and awkwardness is the learning, keeps me keeping on learning.

I hope you found this useful. Please let me know how you implement it in your work.

* excerpt from Developing Resilience During Change by Gregg Brown, Tidal Shift Inc. - for more info contact gregg.brown@tidalshift.ca

October 14, 2016

That's When We All Win


I have been reading about the upcoming American election with some interest. So much so that I only recently realized we were having a local (Halifax, Canada) municipal election and voting at the polling station is on Saturday.

One of the things that elections usually centre on is change for the better. Citizens take responsibility by electing officials who will represent them to take action.

I believe in the power of the democratic process. But related to that is our own power to change our own world. Two songs that I enjoyed about taking self-responsibility are Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror and Nickelback’s When We Stand Together.