Why tell people you’ve changed?

Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

A side note to my last two posts.

A few years ago in response to complete turmoil in my life, I subscribed to boatloads of therapy. This included going on some fairly intense 96 hour retreats which involved a great deal of introspection and challenge. Most people ended those workshops on a high feeling they’d made some useful breakthroughs.

I remember the advice we were given by our hosts. Which was: don’t go back to your families and loved ones yelling about the amazing time you’ve had or how much you’ve changed. Remember that they’ve been leading their own lives too for the last four days. Go back and find out what they’ve been doing… be interested in them.

If you have really changed, they will see that for themselves. There’s no need to tell them.

It strikes me that this would be wise counsel for many corporations that get carried away with their rebrands. If you are really changing, why do you have to tell us about it? Why aren’t you letting us work it out for ourselves?

The answer is usually that advertised change is not real and the announcement itelf is a high risk gamble to try and make something happen.

For me, change is an organic and ongoing process in healthy organisations. No need to brag about it.

Share Post

More Posts

Leading from the clown

I shot this in a single eight-minute take, which is in the spirit of an experience of Ralf Wetzel’s workshop, Leading from the Clown. Clown training is probably the deepest and most challenging work I’ve done. Enjoy.

Noticing

The power of small gestures and noticing

Small p presence

Getting away from grandiosity or solemnity. small p presence is about being open to the life around us

Small i improv

Facilitation is often about small, subtle acts of noticing and experimenting

Enough

We’re bombarded with messages – can we create more space to think?

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

Spam Bayes

On this tip from Jon Strande I installed SpamBayes to Outlook. It’s a cool bit of open source software and after a few days training it’s working very efficiently to

Johnnie Moore

links for 2011-01-24

BPS Research Digest: Other people may experience more misery than you realise Usual caveat that it's US college students in the sample. But it makes sense to: we kid ourselves

Johnnie Moore

European Improv Conference

The first European Conference of the Applied Improv Network is set for 10-11 March in Amsterdam using mostly Open Space. Should be good!

Johnnie Moore

Soundbites

Steve Ellis has a very nice summary of soundbites from the recent Dachis Social Biz Fest. Stuff like this really does feel like a good substitute for going to events