| Mastering Creative Change: Recognize
the Urgency by Rosanne Bane First of a seven-part excerpt of Rosanne Bane's book-in-progress Creative Change: How to Effectively Move Your Inspirations from Dream to Reality. Whether creativity is your profession, your cultural identification or simply how you'll like to be living and enjoying your life, embrace the fact that you're in the change business. Life is change. A creative approach to change makes life a grand adventure, not just a series of inconveniences to be endured. At the very heart of it, creativity is change. To create is to "combine separate and distinct elements into a cohesive new whole." We are constantly changing "what was" into a new, and hopefully improved, "what is." The ability to transform not just external things, but to grow and transform ourselves gives life meaning. This is why being creative is so satisfying and pleasurable. Creativity is a lure that calls us to take the spiritual journey of becoming who we are meant to be. And that means changing who we are, creating a new self from the old. The metaphor of a caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly is often used to illustrate this process. It's a soothing idea. A caterpillar doesn't need permission, approval or a Bush grant. It just does it. Becoming a butterfly is natural, organic and beautiful. Who wouldn't want to become a butterfly? And of course, there is always the subtle, unconscious hope that our next change will turn us into a butterfly at last and we won't have to change again! But the ego and soul evolution of a human being are apparently more complicated than that of a caterpillar, so we need many transformations to become who we are truly meant to be. Add to that the demands of everyday life and it becomes apparent that we all have to be skilled in managing change. If you want the extra thrill of being pro-actively creative, instead of just reacting to whatever the environment throws at you, you need be a master of change. Unexpected resource for creative change In a marvelous piece of synchronicity, two years ago I landed an assignment to research and develop a training program on change for one of my corporate clients. What I learned increased my ability to embrace change in both my personal and professional life. It also added another layer of appreciation for my students and clients who are also becoming creative change masters. That appreciation is the foundation of a new book I'm writing on creative change. As I did the research for my corporate client, I kept thinking about how what is being discovered about organizational change applies to individuals and their creativity. One of the most intriguing authors and experts I found on organizational change is John Kotter, professor of leadership at Harvard Business School and author of the best-selling Leading Change. Kotter points out that a majority of corporate change initiatives not only fail to deliver what they promise, but create situations where "the carnage has been appalling, with wasted resources and burned-out, scared or frustrated employees." You might be tempted to think that creative individuals, left to their own devices, rather than pushed into a change initiative they haven't chosen themselves and aren't committed to, would fare much better. But consider the number of times you've attempted to make a change in your life (a diet, a budget or savings plan, a workout commitment, a promise to meditate daily, etc.). Can you honestly say you've never felt disappointed and frustrated to the point of fearing you'll never be able to make that change stick? Haven't you wasted your share of time, energy and resources in the effort to make a change? Hasn't the cost to your self-confidence and your spirit been appalling in its own way? John Kotter has valuable wisdom to offer organizations, and his wisdom can be adapted to fit individuals. Kotter developed an eight-stage change process to lead effective change within organizations. He also points out that these steps are not linear, but iterative. That is, you don't get to do the first step, cross it off your list and forget about it. Instead, you have to start the first stage and keep doing that while you begin the second. When you're handling those two stages fairly well, you add a third ball to juggle. When you've got three balls in a stable rhythm, you add the fourth and so on -- until you juggled all the stages long enough and well enough to call the change fully implemented. Still, Kotter emphasizes the importance of working each stage in the order listed to achieve the momentum needed to overcome the powerful forces of resistance and inertia. As a creativity coach, instructor and speaker, I work primarily with creative individuals who actively seek and initiate change for the sake of the creative opportunities it presents. I've adapted Kotter's model into a seven-step process for creative change that better reflects the needs and interests of my clients and students and other creative individuals. The Seven Steps of the Creative Change Process are: 1. Recognize the Urgency 2. Enlist Allies 3. Clarify Your Vision and Develop a Strategy 4. Share the Vision 5. Empower Action 6. Generate and Celebrate Intermediate Success 7. Anchor the Change The first step is discussed in this issue. The remaining six articles will appear in future issues. Step 1: Recognize the Urgency Kotter says the first step for organizations is the create urgency for the change. Individuals don't need to create urgency; we need to recognize the urgency that is inherent in our lives. We have an abundance of things we'd like to do, have and be. But we have limited time, so we have to choose. How sad then, to further limit ourselves by ignoring the significance of each and every day. The urgency is just this: You will not have enough time on this earth to do all the things you want to do, but you will have enough time to do the things that are truly most important to you if you take action. "Initially, urgency caught me by surprise. I'd never thought about my personal goals and my craft in that way before," says Sarah Tieck, associate editor at Minnesota Monthly, novelist and creative writing teacher. Having worked through the seven-step process in a Loft class, Tieck credits this first step of recognizing urgency with having the biggest impact on her creative work. "When a friend asked me what I wanted to be doing for my whole life, I realized it was my fiction. But that was what I giving the least attention to." A delicate balance Urgency is not anxiety. Anxiety is fear-based. Urgency is awareness-based. Urgency is not getting yourself into a frenzy or wringing your hands about how little time you have left. It is consciously, deliberately accepting the reality that you have limited time and choosing to act accordingly. Anxiety does not support change. Urgency does. Karen Karsten, an editor at a local publishing house and freelance poet and writer, highlights the importance of seeing the urgency without getting caught up in anxiety. "My sense of urgency is still there, but it is a sense of urgency, not emergency. So I'm not going full speed ahead, sirens blaring." Urgency is the delicate balance between complacency and despondency. You must be aware of the consequences of not taking action so you can avoid the complacency that leads to inaction and ultimate dissatisfaction without falling into an emotional funk that also leads to inaction. That balance requires both courage and faith. Urgency is the crystal-clear awareness that you need to take action, and you need to take action Now! And always with the trust that you are not acting alone or in vain. Change your 'wait habit' It is common to recognize the need for change and at the same time tell ourselves we can always change later. This complacent "Wait Habit" is a subtle way we resist change. "There's always tomorrow" is dangerous. For example, I am writing another book, but today I "have to" do something else and so the new book waits. After all, I can always start tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next month. We've become modern ladies in waiting (apologies to the men, there is no masculine equivalent). And so tomorrow becomes the enemy of today. In a Star Tribune article Kate DiCamillo, Minneapolis children's author, says this about making dreams wait: "I was 29 years old, and I felt like I had wasted a decade. I was disgusted with myself." DiCamillo changed her "wait habit." She made and honored a commitment to write two pages each morning, and eventually published her first novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, which became a New York Times bestseller. You may not want to write books, you may not win awards for your creative efforts, although you might, (10 years ago I'm sure Kate DiCamillo didn't think she would be a bestselling author), but whatever your creative dreams are, you can make them reality by changing your "wait habit" into a "today habit." Use whatever emotion you have about the old waiting habit to move you out of it. DiCamillo was disgusted. You might be angry or frustrated or frightened or disillusioned. Whatever it is, use that emotional energy to stomp your feet and declare "I won't wait anymore! I won't let my life slip away unused!" Use that energy to recognize the urgency of making the change you know you want to make. It has to be NOW! The first step is to recognize the urgency of making the change NOW. Not tomorrow or next week or next month. Today. If you know you're going to do it eventually, why add the guilt, anxiety and self-doubt that procrastinating always brings? If you're going to change something, you may as well start now and get the rewarding sense of accomplishment sooner. Begin by identifying exactly what change you want to make and what the situation will look like after the change. How will the change positively affect you physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, socially? How will it positively affect your family, your community? What are the consequences of not making the change or delaying it? Decide whether you're willing to make this change a priority at this time. If you're not willing to make the change a high priority, it probably won't happen. Better to be open about your choice to postpone the change than to make another empty promise to yourself and others. If you decide to make the change a priority, write a summary of the significance of making this change now. Phrase the summary in positive language (rephrase the consequences of delaying into the rewards of starting now). Regularly remind yourself why it is important to make the change. You may need this reminder daily, even hourly, if the change is a big one. Next month: We'll take a look at the next step in the process, Enlisting Allies. Rosanne Bane, M.A., is a Creativity Coach and author of Dancing in the Dragon's Den: Rekindling the Creative Fire in Your Shadow. She has been teaching creativity for more than 14 years. For more information about her coaching, creativity classes, Change Master workshops and presentations on creativity and change, visit RosanneBane.com or call (612) 722-4139. Copyright © 2003 Rosanne Bane, All Rights Reserved. |
||
|
|
|
