If you had to choose between changing your life and dying what are the odds that you’d change? If you are typical, your odds are 9 to 1. That is, you are much more likely to die than change. That’s the shocking argument of this article from Fast Company – Change or Die – spotted by Rob Paterson.
It’s a good read, taking the example of patients with heart disease, who seem unable to make essential lifestyle changes to improve their health. With obvious implications for why it’s difficult to change organisations. It suggests that fear is a less powerful motivator than joy; that you can’t successfully scare heart patients into change, you need to show them that their lives will be significantly more satisfying, soon, if they change.
It also concludes that our minds are more plastic than we think, and it the right circumstances, all manner of change is possible. That’s something I believe to be true. To be able to do that, we need to get more efficient at letting go of some of the stories we tell ourselves about how the world is. Including (paradoxically) the idea that the odds are against change…
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