I am NOT a big fan of New
Year’s Resolutions. With the best of intentions they are made to kick off the
year with a set of goals or aspirations. But…they rarely have a plan that
supports their long term success. What if this year, instead of drafting a list
of promises you intend to fulfill, you focus on sustainable change.
Let’s look at a common
New Year’s resolution and its path. You start with vowing to workout regularly
and get in better shape. You decide what you will focus on your fitness in the
coming year. You stare at the January 1st date on your calendar
anticipating said resolution. You dive in headfirst and are at the gym on day 1
at 6am. Dry chicken breast for dinner with a side of steamed kale is your
choice for dinner, you’re all in! Around day 5 you stumble upon a cupcake in
the conference room and it’s all over. The cupcake turns into a food crawl and
you hit the snooze button 5 times the next morning and never make it to the
gym.
What if you took that
resolution a little further? What if you REALLY thought about the big picture
of WHY you want to eat better and work out (your appearance, health,
endurance, etc.)? What if you developed a strategy for HOW you were going to
create change over time, in stages, in other words sustainable change? Perhaps it
would have ended differently.
It’s not such a different
exercise for businesses. Everyone comes back from the holidays with a renewed
sense of purpose. A fresh slate. And maybe leadership throws some goals
(resolutions) on a white board. Maybe there’s even a lunch and learn to get
everyone excited and rally around them. That’s a strong start, but we need to
make sure these goals become part of our day-to-day.
That’s what I mean about
sustainable change. We don’t want our organizations to go from Cross Fit to
cupcake in a week, right?
The biggest difference
between resolutions and sustainable change is longevity. So the best thing you
can do for your organization is to take those resolutions and tie them back to
the big picture. Help your employees connect the dots of “why change” followed by “how to change”.
Make sure they understand their individual roles as they relate to these
resolutions and feel accountable and invested.
I
recently came across an article from SimplicityHR about sustainable
change. In addition to the framework they propose using to drive sustainable
change, I loved this statement: “On the other hand, sustainable change is an
intervention that truly takes root in an organization. When achieved,
sustainable change helps an organization move from making conscious
"efforts to change" to establishing a new, accepted "way of
doing business."
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