Change in 4D

By Wendy Wickham

The Personal Change Toolkit

We are overwhelmed by changes. Changes we feel we need to make to ourselves to be more efficient, effective, energetic, and nicer to be around. Changes that others inflict on us as they pursue their agendas. Changes to the environments we work within that feel uncontrollable and unpredictable. Society ask

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648261862

Book preview

Change in 4D:

A Holistic Approach

to Change

Change in 4D:

A Holistic Approach

to Change

Wendy M. Wickham

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2020 Wendy M. Wickham

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Nick Courtright

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the publisher.

Change in 4D

2020, Wendy M. Wickham

atmospherepress.com

Contents

Introduction      3

Chapter 1: Change in 4D      15

Chapter 2: The Change Journey      21

Chapter 3: Create Your Baseline      37

Chapter 4: Values and Vision      54

Chapter 5: Defining the Problem      64

Chapter 6: Developing Your Targets      71

Chapter 7: Determining Your Focus      80

Chapter 8: Impact and Resource Analysis      102

Chapter 9: Creating Goals and Milestones      114

Chapter 10: Defining Done      121

Chapter 11: Preparing Yourself      132

Chapter 12: Preparing the Environment      152

Chapter 13: Engaging with Others      162

Chapter 14: Resources and Costs      178

Chapter 15: Tasks and Schedules      190

Chapter 16: After the Effort      211

Appendix A: Planning Approaches      217

Appendix B: Estimation Approaches      224

Appendix C: Risk Management and Mitigation      228

Appendix D: Rewards and Reinforcers      238

Footnotes      241

Gratitudes      257

Resources      261

Dedicated to Barbara Escarilla Russell Rouse and Karen Russell Kauffmann. Thank you both for modeling grace and grit and for your encouragement as I embarked on this new venture. I am privileged to call both of you family as well as dear friends and mentors. Rest in peace.

Introduction

The marketing around change focuses on making change quick and painless, ideally with little effort on your part. There is an assumption that once you get through that 28-day program, or 7-week program, or however long they want your attention, that the change will stick, again with little to no effort on your part.

We assume change is good. We should want change and we should want change faster. Move fast, break things. Be agile and innovative. Unfortunately, we are not asking about the quality of that experience—either for ourselves or others—and we are not asking about the long-term ramifications of that experience. We are not encouraged to ask why we want to make the changes we wish to make, what the long-term consequences of that change are, who else the change impacts, and how that change integrates into your life.

The journey of life is change. Change is neither good nor bad. It happens around us and within us and to us whether we want it to or not. Too much change all at once results in what I fondly call The Rubber Band Effect, like excitedly going strict paleo and binging on candy bars and beer three days after you start. I had been observing this dynamic in my own life, in my friends’ lives, and in organizations. As I sat with this thought, I started wondering whether the way we talk about and approach change is doing us a disservice.

I started to investigate whether there was a different way to approach the conversation about change. At first, I wanted to eliminate any notion of faster from the conversation. I didn’t see how Faster! More! helped anyone. All I saw was my professional colleagues opting out of their careers while in their prime by either retiring or disengaging in place. The folks that didn’t entirely disconnect were anxious (on a good day) and burned out. I saw entrepreneurial friends struggling to prioritize, focus, and get things done. I saw personal friends struggling with chronic illness, decision-making, and establishing healthy habits. I sensed a deep, almost existential exhaustion lined with anger and frustration.

There is so much information, opportunity, and advice about what one should do—exacerbated by the carefully cultivated chaos sowed in our social media—that is it any wonder that we are struggling with our baseline physical and mental health, our sense of security, and our feelings of belonging?

Within all that information, there is little discussion of how your change impacts others, or how your environment can support or hinder your efforts. However, many of us are trying to improve ourselves in response to, and in the context of, a destabilizing environment.

I was not convinced that the discussion around change should center around faster and more. I hypothesized that the discussion around change should instead center around what we want to experience and the lessons we learn from that experience.

Still, since much of the conversation was around more change, faster, I had to keep exploring.

I asked whether we could get faster out of the change conversation altogether.¹ Are there ways to better align with nature when we think about change? Nature works at different paces. The flight of birds. The drift of clouds. The change of seasons. The growth of a tree. The formation and erosion of hills. These things only go as fast as they are supposed to go.

Wendy, one of the defining hallmarks of humans is that we want to change our environment so that we are more comfortable and don’t have to work so hard.² The history of technology is a history of people figuring out how to do things easier…and faster. Drat.

I then realized that, throughout history, once people figure out how to do something easier and faster, they replace the gap in activity created by the invention with another activity—not more leisure. Even with the desire to create more time-savings, things will still happen at their appropriate speed. That speed is often slower than many would prefer, and you can’t force them to go any quicker. Culture change comes to mind. Habit development is another. Writing a book is a third.

Maybe there is a better way to think about change? Maybe there is a way to more naturally accommodate the time it takes for manifestation, mastery, and mindset adjustment? Maybe there is a model we can use to stabilize the foundations again? I fear the consequences if we just keep the change conversation centered around faster.³

***

I have been working as an IT implementation specialist, corporate trainer, and project manager for 20 years—mostly in higher education and health care. I have implemented early Electronic Medical Records—back when MDs insisted that their paper charts could only be pried out from their cold, dead hands—and complex Unified Communications systems that promise to radically transform the way we communicate. I’ve been involved in project management process implementations and business process improvement initiatives. I’ve seen jargon and trends come and go from my position within the trench of the technical individual contributor.

I had just finished a major client project. It was successful by the standard measures of project success—on time (barely), under budget (significantly). The client was thrilled; they now had the foundations to execute on the strategic initiatives they defined during the project and considered the project not only successful in terms of the typical project management measures, but also in terms of strategic positioning. I should have been proud. Instead, I was exhausted and miserable. A career spent on high-stress, highly politicized projects where I was the inflictor of change and focus of angst had taken its toll. I needed some distance from the system. Something wasn’t right and, judging from the growing number of colleagues opting out, it wasn’t just me.

Amplifying this discomfort, as this book was beginning to take shape in the spring of 2018, I attended three family funerals in less than three months. The final funeral, a beloved cousin and professional colleague losing her lengthy fight with lung cancer, hit home.

My cousin Karen was in her late 50s. Her declining health forced her into retirement three years prior to her death and she spent her remaining days being poked and prodded by doctors and feeling more like a scientific object than a human with skills, experience, and knowledge. She served as an invaluable sounding board and our conversations helped me clarify and refine my ideas. From her account, our conversations also helped remind her that she was more than a lung cancer patient and her death reminded me that each of us only have so much time on this earth.

As I stare at 50 at the time of this writing, it dawns on me that the amount of time I have available is dwindling. One uncomfortable question surfaced: How do I want to spend the rest of my time and what do I want to contribute?

***

My reaction to discomfort is to bury myself in research. I had the sense that what I and my friends were experiencing was not isolated. What I found was both disturbing and heartening. Disturbing because I learned that the system is working as designed, but working for very few and breaking the rest. Heartening because I learned that my friends and I were not alone. During my research, I uncovered the following statistics:

1) According to Gallup’s 2017 State of the Workplace report, only 15% of workers are engaged in their work. Among those highly engaged in their work, Yale found that 1 in 5 of those people reported burnout.⁴

2) In Q1 2018, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the hours worked were up 2.3%, but the output per hour was only up 0.4%. Labor productivity growth is historically low.⁵

3) In an Oxfam International report cited by the World Economic Forum 82% of the wealth created in 2017 went to the top 1% of the world’s population. Wages remain flat.⁶

These statistics are just a small sampling of the research around how well our current economic system and organizational structures are working for most of us. It is becoming apparent that the systems are starting to not work for the executive class either. Price Waterhouse Cooper, in its 22nd annual survey of CEOs, found that 34% were extremely concerned that the availability (or lack thereof) of key skills is the biggest threat to their business, especially creativity and innovation skills.⁷

The people I see throwing in the towel are the same people possessing the technical, creative, and innovation skills that CEOs feel they need to advance their businesses. Furthermore, those who I observed leaving the corporate workplace not only have these sought-after skills, their skills have been cultivated and refined over a decade or more. They have seen patterns and have a wealth of experience that they can leverage—if they so choose.

When I first started writing this book, I approached the project with the following questions: How can we make the workplace more humane? How can we encourage the people with the skills and abilities that employers want to stay in the workplace? These early questions, however, began to strike me as the wrong questions. I realized that maybe those who are throwing in the towel are onto something. My professional colleagues are making the conscious decision to opt out because they realize that there is more to life than work, the workplace, and cultural notions of success. They are choosing to spend more time with family and loved ones, pursuing hobbies and passions, and selecting quality of life over quantity of paycheck and they have concluded that the current workplace does not provide the environment for them to thrive. In response, they have chosen to withdraw these hard-earned skills, and their energy, from the workplace. They are choosing a different perspective on change.

***

We are fundamentally faced with a wicked problem when it comes to the conversation about change. Alan Watkins, former affiliate professor of leadership at the European School of Management, London, and a previous honorary senior lecturer in neuroscience and psychological medicine at Imperial College London, and Ken Wilber, developer of Integral Theory, in their book Wicked and Wise, defined a wicked problem as one that contains multi-dimensions in that the problem and potential solution has both an interior component, where an individual or collective need to change beliefs and thinking, and an exterior component, where there needs to be a change to systems and behavior; has multiple stakeholders, each of whom has multiple dimensions themselves and unique perspectives; is a result of multiple causes that are often intertwined and interdependent; has multiple symptoms, many of which are wicked problems in their own right; contains the possibility of multiple solutions, which may or may not exacerbate other problems; and is constantly evolving.⁸

Abraham Maslow, a mid-20th century psychologist at Brandeis University, identified these foundations and argues that base (physiological) needs, such as food, sex, sleep have to be secured first, then safety and security needs, then the need for belonging, then the need for esteem, and only after you have a solid foundation of each can you self-actualize.⁹

In the developed countries, we are in an environment that’s incredibly destabilizing and it’s made worse by our foundations being undermined. First, we are destabilized physiologically—especially regarding sleep. People are not sleeping well. According to the Centers for Disease Control (2014), over 35% of adults get less than the recommended seven hours per night. People who slept less were more likely to experience chronic conditions such as heart failure, asthma, anxiety, depression, stroke, arthritis, cancer, and diabetes. Even among those who got the full 7+ hours, 35% of those individuals suffered from poor sleep quality. Our inability to rest affects our ability to handle stress, our decision making, our mental health, even our weight.¹⁰

Second, we are destabilized at the level of safety and security. The gig economy is growing. More people work as contractors or contingent workers and some of us hold multiple jobs. Though the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a recent decline, the Brookings Institution noted that a sizable share of workers in the United States remains outside the traditional employment structure and consequently lacks many of the protections and benefits that come with being a traditional employee.¹¹ Though layoffs and discharges have stabilized between 1.5 million and 2 million people monthly since June 2010, that’s still over 1.5 million with job insecurity. This doesn’t account for the time spent prior to the discharge wondering about whether you will have a job tomorrow.¹² Fundamentally, people are being treated like cogs in a machine. It’s an old, de-humanizing model. This is what we’re working with.

The way I see it, it behooves us individually to get ourselves right and then make sure that when we interact with others, that we’re doing so as best as we can on any given day from a place of respect. It’s easier to do that if we’re sleeping well and if we’re well nourished, than if we’re not. It’s easier to do when we feel secure in ourselves than if we don’t. It also strikes me that maybe being angry and depressed is a healthy reaction to what we’re seeing in our organizations, what we’re seeing in our world and how we’re interacting with and reacting to each other. Angry and depressed is an exhausting (and unhealthy) way to live.¹³

As I looked at the landscape of my life and career and sat with this wicked problem, I remembered that the only thing I really have control over is me. The best I can do is to work towards my highest self and cultivate healthy relationships with others. It’s tough to interact in healthy ways, especially if someone’s angering you, if you’re tired or hungry, if you’re overwhelmed and overstressed. That’s why in this book I’m focused on helping you with personal change.

My theory is that if you’re able to experience what successful change looks like on a personal level and see how your change impacts others, you will be able to apply that experience to larger-scale initiatives. Real change needs to start in ourselves. The next place we can focus is in our one-on-one interactions with others. Getting the self healthy, then cultivating peaceful, respectful, and healthy relationships between each other may be our best shot at creating a world we want to live in.

This book is an attempt to provide you with a framework for thinking about change and an invitation to consider how personal change impacts not only you, but also your friends and your environment.

What to Expect

Let’s start by taking a closer look at the theoretical foundations of the change journey and the framework you will use to help plan your change effort.

Chapter 1 will introduce you to the Change in 4D model. I am encouraging you to consider any change effort through the lens of time, both short- and long-term, and through the impact on not just yourself, but also on those who surround you and your personal environment.

Chapter 2 will introduce you to the Change Journey. This is the process everyone goes through when making a change or learning something new. We will talk about the hazards on the journey and options for responding to those challenges.

In the middle of the book, you will get a clear view of where you are starting, a sense of your distant destination, and a roadmap to get from here to there.

Chapter 3 helps you get a clear view of where you are starting. Many of us often skip this step, but it is critical for attaining clarity around your change and identifying what you already have to work with.

In Chapter 4, you are going to start your change effort by looking at the highest level of your life—defining not just the values you wish to live by, but also a vision of what your ultimate life experience will be.

Chapter 5 will help you with problem identification. Change efforts start because you identify a problem that needs to be fixed. In this chapter, I will help you evaluate whether you have a problem worth fixing and clarifying why you want to fix it. You will need this information on the change journey.

Chapter 6 will walk you through a process that will help you develop long- and short-term targets. This targeting process will help clarify the direction you wish to head and the milestones to get there.

You will start defining your area of focus in Chapter 7. This is the change you wish to pursue during an immediate time frame.

Chapter 8 will help you identify the potential impact of your change and begin developing an inventory of both the things you have to work with and the gaps in your resources—personal, material, and communal.

In Chapter 9, you will create specific goals and milestones for your change effort. Goals and milestones will provide both something to work towards and a way to measure progress.

Chapter 10 will introduce you to the concept of Definition of Done and help you define done for both your change effort and your individual tasks. This will help you feel the sense of completion your brain craves as well as lighten your cognitive load.

The next 3 chapters will help you prepare for the change effort:

Chapter 11 helps you prepare yourself for change. This preparation is key to making your change effort successful and sticky.

Chapter 12 will show you how to prepare your environment so that it supports your change and find safe spaces to practice your change.

Chapter 13 will help you identify potential supporters and detractors. Most change efforts fail because the change threatens others. This chapter will help you develop a plan for engaging your supporters and communicating (or not) with your detractors.

The next two chapters will help you create a plan for success.

Chapter 14 shows you how to create and leverage a budget, as well as how to create a resource plan for the resources you have and the resources you need.

Chapter 15 will help you break down your big change effort into small, manageable tasks. These small tasks will help you move forward on your change without overwhelming you and will make it more likely that your change