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

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

Buzz agencies

Ben McConnell speculates on the future of all the buzz marketing agencies and reckons the losers will be those who try to mechanize evangelism or develop incentive programs to build

Johnnie Moore

First rule of the blogosphere..

…is not to generalise about the blogosphere says Chris Anderson. I agree with his sentiment. The trouble is, we all need to generalise from time-to-time, so perhaps we just shouldn’t

Johnnie Moore

Meetings, grooming, decisions

Rob has an interesting post at the FastForward blog looking at the science and numbers behind twitter. He puts up a couple of pictures from Valdis Krebs. The pictures contrast

Johnnie Moore

The problem with advice

Edith Zimmerman has some wise things to say about advice: After editing an advice column for two years I’ve decided that there is no such thing as advice. There are