Steve Yastrow blogs his new article, The Window and the Mirror.

Whenever I ask a new or prospective client to describe the issues that confront his or her business, they inevitably describe forces from the outside world that stand in the way of success. These forces could include competitive threats, fickle customers, economic conditions, intransigent unions, the weather—you name it.

...But the biggest variable affecting your success is you. Look in the mirror and you will see the most powerful factor that determines whether you succeed or fail - you.

Steve suggests this question:

If, one year from now, you look back and see that you were not able to achieve the best case outcomes which you had identified for each of the outside forces, what would be the reason? Can you identify the internal obstacles that might prevent you from succeeding? If so, is there any excuse not to act now to preempt these obstacles?

This triggered me to reread my posting on a similar theme - Shadow Conversations. I sometimes talk about keeping conversations "inside the room" as a way of ensuring engagement. I was talking to a health sector manager about new ways of running meetings, and he told me "But how do I sell that to hard-bitten consultants who are very resistant to change?" In some ways a fair question. But once I slip into conversations about these - to me - hypothetical people and what they might think of me or my process, I find myself at sea in a world of hypothesis. And sometimes talking about change (and usually about how difficult it is) is what stops change from happening.

In this case, I took a different approach, which was something like this. I pointed out that what he'd said was a familiar experience for me in the health service, and talked about shadow conversations and their power. I then said, "We could talk about these difficult people who I've not met.. but I imagine you're asking that question because of some doubt of your own about the process - in which case, I'd prefer to talk about that. Or we could talk about your anxiety about confronting them - that's something that is here inside the room." Although he was a bit suprised by this, we did then get into a much more interesting conversation.

Change is often spoken of as something to be done elsewhere, by (or to) other people. I think the effect is to make change some hypothetical process, and perhaps to give the speakers a kind of illusory sense of power. Thus, consultants are paid to come up with programmes called "Creating a Compelling Case for Change".

A friend was once asked by a CEO to get his staff to have more engaging conversations. His inspired intervention was simply to ask the boss, "Is this an engaging conversation?" Rather Zen like, I think that captures the challenge of getting conversations into the here-and-now where I think change can happen. What Ben and Roz Zander call "possibility space".