To make a pound cake, you mix a pound of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, add the right amount of heat and voila…you’ve got cake!
We all have aspects of ourselves that we would like to change, and just like it is easier to enjoy a delicious cake when you know the recipe, it’s easier to step into your vision if you know the ingredients. A recipe gives us confidence to persevere through the inevitable discomfort on the path to change.
Change requires four ingredients – Desire, Knowledge, Awareness and Practice – and a few choices to shift our default. An intention to bring knowledge into present moment awareness, and a commitment to new ways of being and doing. A healthy dose of dissatisfaction with status quo helps as well!
Desire And Dissatisfaction Fuel Action
A clear and compelling vision of the future pulls us forward and dissatisfaction pushes us away from status quo. The combined forces of desire and dissatisfaction must overcome the resistance for the process to begin. Change requires hard work, when practice gets tough, as it inevitably will, you need energy to keep pushing.
What is your vision?
Who will you be and what will you have when you’ve actualized it?
What are the consequences of doing nothing?
Change efforts can fail when someone (usually a manager) desires a change in someone else (usually a direct report). Well meaning people in your life can believe in you, point to the benefits of change or the consequences of not changing, but no one else can desire ‘for’ you. Desire must come from within.
When we have a clear vision and a dispassionate account of status quo, we recognize the gap. The gap creates conflict and activates our instinct to resolve, which is a powerful force we can tap into.
No burning desire. No change.
I once reported to a regional leader who was borderline abusive. Let’s just say that he belongs to the category of leaders I would never want my daughter to work with. Once, in a rare candid moment, he said to me “Ajit, you know for 10 years I’ve been getting feedback that I am abrasive.” I was stunned. He had the knowledge. But he had no desire to change, and honestly no incentive either. The organization was rewarding him amply for the bountiful financial results he was delivering. Stay with me, for a more hopeful example!
Knowledge Is Necessary But Not Enough
Jo is a successful executive with aspirations to become the CEO (desire). But and there is always a but, almost everyone in the company knows that ‘Jo avoids conflict like the plague.’ Talented members keep leaving the team citing a harmonious-but-unproductive, work environment. This worries Jo (dissatisfaction).
Let’s assume Jo does not know this…yet.
When we don’t know, we have a blind spot. It is as if we have no choice. Perhaps it is better to say that our only choice is to be proactive in seeking feedback to illuminate our blind spots. To know something is to shine light on and bring into focus. Suddenly, we can see. Now we know where to direct our attention. Results from a 360-feedback survey clearly indicate that “Jo needs to stop avoiding conflict and find a productive way to deal with it.” Now Jo knows.
I want to pause here to make a helpful distinction between knowledge and awareness. Knowledge is concept and awareness is contact. Knowledge can be parsed, curated and categorized (I am a D or I am an INTJ). It is like a bag of seeds. Dormant. For growth to occur the seed must be planted and nourished. Awareness, on the other hand, is like a growing crop. Alive, embodied, embedded in context, and right-here-right-now. It is not something we can store, but something we have in the moment.
Knowledge is necessary to point our awareness, but to know is not enough. To ‘know’ without an intention to cultivate awareness and a commitment to practice is like claiming credit for having good thoughts. Seemingly noble, but no impact.
Awareness Is Where Rubber Meets The Road
Our body is always in the present moment, which is why bodily sensations are a reliable gateway to awareness. This might be a quickening of our breath or a sinking feeling in the stomach. And when we become aware, time seems to slow down. We can catch ourselves in the act of our default, unproductive, behavior. The awareness allows us to pause and choose new ways of doing and being.
To be aware is to recognize that moment of choice. To re-cognize literally means “to know again”.
To get better at dealing with conflict, Jo needs to re-cognize the moment when conflict emerges. What’s happening in the body? What are the signs of discomfort? Getting warm, getting jittery perhaps. When Jo makes a commitment to being aware, that moment expands and allows choice. That is the magic moment, when a new behavior has the chance to establish roots.
Before an important meeting, Jo might create an intention – I’m going to notice what happens when conflict emerges. I’m going to stay in the discomfort and choose a new action. The action might be very simple; “I’m going to keep my mouth shut for 10 seconds” (doing) and “I’m going to ask a question to understand the root cause of the conflict better” (being curious). Baby steps.
Awareness without commitment to new practice is like remembering your spouse’s birthday and doing nothing to make it special. Sure, it’s a step further from knowledge, but far from lasting change.
Practice Makes It Real
We have decades of experience in default behaviors, those that serve us well and those that get in the way. While the first moment of awareness and practice is a great start, it is not enough. For lasting transformation, we need continuous practice.
Practice, by definition, is messy and imperfect. It’s that feeling you get when you try to use the mouse with your non-dominant hand. Uncomfortable and inefficient. Performance is not the goal, testing, experiencing and learning is.
For Jo, this might look like choosing to try new approaches to conflict in low-stakes situations and learning from the experience. Trying the experiment. Noticing what happens and learning from it. And repeating the process. Baby steps in a safe environment.
When we practice, we create new knowledge. And this knowledge has a lot more currency because we had agency. Jo has firsthand experience in testing, and learning from, his own way to deal with conflict. Progress is exciting and fuels more testing and more practice.
If we stay with the process, we begin to live into our vision. That’s transformational!
Now That You ‘Know’, What Are You Going To Do About It?
What’s your vision?
What do you ‘know’ that you need to change?
Are you willing to re-cognize and become aware?
Are you willing to practice?
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Just hit reply!
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