Finding Who Cares--An Idea Crucial for Change

“Finding who cares” is critical to making change happen. Caring motivates individuals and organizations to move through the awareness—acceptance—action phases of preparing for change (slides 8 and 9). More than that, caring can motivate individuals to move beyond “paradigm paralysis”—a locking in to a comfort zone of the old paradigm when a paradigm shift is beginning to happen. (Similar to the idea that “the sun revolves around the earth” rather than that “the earth revolves around the sun.” –The paradigm shift attributed to Copernicus.)

The USA economy of 2009 shows elements of both paradigm paralysis and an emerging paradigm shift. One way to see this in action is to look at the efforts of Team Earth. Team Earth created a new website today to encourage others to join with them (in the process of awareness—acceptance—and action) to preserve Planet Earth. Two other interconnected concepts relate to what is happening around us today.

Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, introduced the idea of “circle of concern.” The outermost circle is a broad circle of concern—the edge of awareness of the individual owning the circles. Inside the broad circle is a person’s circle of influence—an area where actions on the part of the individual can have an effect, direct or indirect. Inside the circle of influence is the circle of control—a much smaller circle where decisions and actions by the individual are largely under the control of the individual. When a person moves through awareness—acceptance—and action, most effective action takes place in the circle of control with less effective action in the circle of influence. The circle of concern is at a limit of awareness without consequence on the other two circles.

“What’s In It for Me (WIIFM)?” is second interconnected concept that is in play in today’s challenges for caring and change. True caring, accompanied by progress through the awareness—acceptance—action phases, (Slides 8 and 9) helps an individual make the personal decision and take the personal action that moves him or her beyond the limits of his or her comfort zone.

In schools, students who consistently read below-grade level frequently respond by engaging in off-task behavior, actively intervening to avoid difficult or unpleasant work. They are often successful, with the result that they do not learn what they need to learn in the classroom. In business, upper-level decision makers may not fully support a vision for change held by a few executives. In their resistance, they can actively sabotage the efforts toward change initiated by the senior executives. While successfully maintaining the “status quo” and their comfort zones, it may lead to the dissolution of the business. Some of these actions were part of the “melt-down” of the economy in the USA. Some executives whose comfort zones (and life styles) dictated that they needed high salaries regardless of the financial performance of their organizations worked to continue their executive pay-outs even when the organizations were bailed out by taxpayer dollars. Some organizations said that the money paid to executives came from the organization and that the federal dollars were used for other needs of the organization.

A few years ago Al Gore introduced a movie, An Inconvenient Truth, documenting the negative effects on Planet Earth caused by “global warming.” Evidence from observation—frequently in multimedia format accessed over the Internet—shows major changes on the planet. There is still debate regarding the cause. Whether or not global warming is the cause of what is happening to the planet, major changes are taking place on a daily basis. The feature story of National Geographic’s August, 2009, issue was on the super volcano located below Yellowstone National Park.

Team Earth and National Geographic are both looking for concerned individuals and organizations to care enough about Planet Earth to lobby for change—and to take other action. We all know how hard it is to make a personal change—such as moving to an ideal weight, becoming smoke-free, reading successfully, speaking another language fluently, engaging regularly in healthy exercise.

Actions to improve healthy lifestyle bring the focus to the health care system in the USA. Regardless of the changes proposed by President Barack Obama, many people and organizations are lobbying strongly for their personal WIIFM. The public at large needs affordable, comprehensive healthcare--that's a WIIFM for the public. How to meld an entire nation into a shared vision for positive change is a challenge for the Obama administration and for all U.S. citizens.

The American Red Cross is an organization that is part of a world-wide movement of people who care.  Caring can take many forms--from donations to volunteer service to the community and to the world community.

“Finding who cares” is an important pursuit. Our “wisdom models” need to be people who care. If we want to make a positive change in our lives, we need to care enough to make it happen. If we want to make a positive change in our families, our family needs to care enough to make it happen. If we want to make a positive change in our organizations, sufficient levels and numbers of people in the organization need to care enough to share the vision and to bring the change about. How do we know when we’ve found people who care?

That will be the subject of another post. It is important to keep asking ourselves that question. Perhaps one of the characteristics will be that what they care about will be reflected in their answer to WIIFM and not be limited to themselves.

Perspective--One of the Values of Experience

Perspective, in the context of wisdom, can come from having multiple and varied experiences and learning from them.  One of the values to be gained from experience is the perspective one develops over time.  Some people seem to have the same experience repeated for many years.  Others have multiple experiences throughout the same number of years.

When someone faces a challenge, finding someone who can share some perspective on the situation can be invaluable.  This is one of the benefits of working with a "wisdom model" (see an earlier post).

Peter Senge, in his work with the Fifth Discipline, refers to "systems thinking."  One way to look at systems thinking is to imagine a pebble in a pond and at all the things the ripples will touch.  What connects to what other thing?  Many times the changes being considered in response to a perceived challenge will produce consequences.  Part of systems thinking is to explore the potential consequences and to refine the decision to minimize negative consequences.  This is another of the benefits perspective can bring to a situation.

How do we find someone with that perspective and wisdom.  A first thing to do is to look for him or her.

"What's in it for me (WIIFM)?"--Theme song of education and business

"What's in it for me (WIIFM)?" is a theme of adult learning that also permeates K-12 education, business-to-business relationships, and business-to-consumer (and consumer-to-business) relationships.

Educators need to address the WIIFM concerns to get students ready to learn.  Business-to-business (B2B) sales must address those concerns as must business-to-consumer (B2C) sales.  President Obama faces these concerns in issues over health care (and everything else he is proposing.)  Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives must address those issues for themselves and for their constituents (voters) in the votes they take "on the hill."

Is that so bad?  Abraham Maslow documented his "hierarchy of needs" (see slide 5) and talked about moving from survival to belonging to recognition to self-esteem to self-actualization.  WIIFM deals with levels one through four on this hierarchy.  Self-actualized people are seen as more altruistic--looking to add value to others.  We certainly need more people operating at these higher levels when the lower levels are met.

At the same time, when we want others to to connect with us or to become involved with us, we need to address the WIIFM concerns so that our target audience will find reasons to engage with us.  Our messages need to take these concerns into account.

Surfing Waves of Change

Moving from "paradigm paralysis" to "paradigm shift" is not easy.  Rather than resisting change (paradigm paralysis), it is more fun to embrace change (the paradigm shift).  Surfing conveys the image of embracing powerful currents and learning to move with them.

The economy in the USA is undergoing a variety of transformations.  People looking for work need to stay abreast of the technology being used to manage employment.  When someone completes an online application for work, it is good to recheck it a few weeks later to see if the software has changed.  Updates may mean the difference between being hired and being passed over for that employment.

Beyond the relatively simple challenge of using software to complete applications, the jobs themselves are changing.  More changes are on the way.  Research on education has indicated that many students in K-12 schools are reading below grade-level and that the trend is both continuing and growing.  Since 1995, millions of dollars have been invested and thousands of interventions have been implemented to change these outcomes and the outcomes are still with us. (For more information visit http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/research.)

Jobs themselves are changing and many of the people who are unemployed are becoming underemployed because funds are not available--and jobs are not available at the moment--comparable to the jobs they have left.

Surfing is a skill that needs to be learned.  Surfing waves of change requires a variety of skills to understand the changes taking place and to take charge of what we can control in order to surf these powerful waves.

Wisdom Models--Finding Them and Using Them

A "wisdom model" can be thought of as someone or some organization who can act as a mentor for one or more people.  "Model" in this sense refers to examples of human behavior to be copied.  "Wisdom" refers to the recognized ability to organize learning, experience, insight, and other relevant inputs in order to make appropriate and effective decisions regarding behavior and values.  In short, a "wisdom model" is someone we choose to guide us in our learning and behavior for as long as we make that choice.

For infants, their wisdom models come from their environment--their immediate family or others who they interact with throughout their early life.  Much of the influence of these models is unconscious.  Unfortunately, infants may not be able to distinguish between positive and negative models in this stage of development.  The history of many abusers shows that they, themselves, were abused at an early age.

Children often choose teachers as wisdom models when they reach school.  As they become more independent, they may come to recognize some teachers as either positive or negative models.  Teenagers, as part of their growing development to make their own choices, may shift their focus of wisdom models to people expressing behaviors not endorsed by the mainstream--for example, "gangbangers" and "gangbanger-wannabe's" in grades six through twelve.

When we leave school we may move through a variety of wisdom models.  On a personal note, I have held some wisdom models in high esteem, then found that I did not want to do what they were successful at and I needed to change wisdom models to another that was more appropriate for me.

At certain stages in our lives, we can serve as wisdom models for our children and our friends and colleagues.  There may be an element that one person has that is worthwhile to copy.  Hopefully we become more descriminating as we move through our own stages of development.

Priorities in life will also impact who we choose as a wisdom model.  Adults at an early stage in their working life (which may involve multiple careers) may embrace work behaviors that include overbalancing their lives in favor of work.  At a later stage, they may want to move to a more evenly balanced lifestyle or even place more priority on family rather than earning and work.

Authors of many self-help books also serve as wisdom models--at least for their specific expertise if it is something we want to copy or to use.  More and more self-help books are being published daily--via the Internet as well as in paper and audio form.  We have a wide choice of wisdom models and may work with an abundance of them at any one time.

As we develop our own wisdom and expertise in working with wisdom models, we need to pay careful attention to the process we use to find them and then what we do with the examples and wisdom they provide.  How we use our wisdom models is important to our daily life experience.  Sometimes we may have them, then ignore their wisdom and exampleship.

Some key questions to ask ourselves:
Are we doing what we want to be doing in our lifes?  Who is (are) our wisdom model for our life right now?  How are we using the wisdom the model provides to our best advantage?

How do we communicate value in a way that invites trust and openness?

The media is communicating that "our economy is coming back."  At the same time there is still double-digit unemployment.  The percent of growth of consumer buying (especially in the "back to school" season) was very low and was still growth.

As we invite others to collaborate and share value, we are challenged in choosing the most effective ways to build trust and openness with these people.  This can be even more challenging for business leaders in that many do not want anyone else to be aware that they could use some outside help.  (Actually, we all can--at least to gain more perspective and wisdom on the issues we are dealing with.)

Digital portfolios may be one way to build a bridge to communication.  Two of these digital portfolios are available at the website the title is connected to.  Even so, people need to go beyond the digital portfolios to begin to find the value that may be present in working with the professional offering the portfolios. 

This is a topic for discussion.  Blogs also serve as ways to get people more engaged with us and can lead to an increase of both openness and trust. 

Let's see what's next.

Talent--Encouraging, Liberating, Mining, Developing, Managing, Guiding, Leading

"Chief of Staff, Talent and Human Capital Services"--"Talent," a new buzz-word for Human Resources?  Human Capital--the human assets of an organization.  In much of the world today the public is entranced by the concept of talent.  "The American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," and many other programs around the world emphasize the discovery and promotion of talent. 

A few years ago we had such titles as "Chief Knowledge Officer" and "Chief Learning Officer" as senior executive positions in larger organizations.  Today, the Chief of Staff, Talent and Human Capital Services position commands a $100K+ salary (source: HRLadders.com).  Candidates for this position, must have prior experience in at least one of the following human resources related areas: Recruiting and talent acquisition; Staffing and talent management; Career guidance and counseling; or other human resources related experience.

What does this new terminology actually mean in terms of developing the people who either work for an organization or who are being considered for employment by an organization?  What talent is important in a job and how can it be "tapped," "released," "acquired," "managed," "taught," "developed?"

Does the "new" terminology reflect a significant change in the way people are valued by the organization?  In this age of layoffs and challenging economic conditions, there seems to be a disconnect between the vocabulary of these positions and the actual experience of the people employed (or seeking employment) in the companies who have officials with these titles.

What is your experience?