Change & Uncertainty

Words: 288 Reading Time: 0 minutes 57 seconds

The old saying used to be that only two things were certain in this life – death and taxes. Over recent years a third element has been added – that of change. Indeed, change is now so often trumpeted as a constant that it has become a mere cliché.

However, I am not so sure.

Einstein, in proposing the General Theory of Relativity, reflexively dropped into his equations something called the cosmological constant, which arbitrarily offset the effects of gravity. He later called it “the biggest blunder of my life”.

Are we about to make a similar error where change is concerned?

When assessing the nature of change we quickly recognize that while change may always be with us, it is no constant. Change happens at different speeds, in different directions, at different times, in different places and in different ways. In fact, the one thing about change is uncertainty. In which case, how can we pretend that it is a constant?

Unless we accept the unknown nature of change we may find ourselves expecting a large shift in circumstances, say, economic recovery, that actually unfolds only slowly. We may anticipate a fast payback on an advertising campaign that turns out to be a slow-burn. We may bet the balance sheet on our latest product going unremarked by the competition, when the opposite proves to be true.

In no way does change appear to have the same degree of certainty as death and taxes where the end results are well known and totally predictable (death and less disposable income).

Mind you, the advent of dark matter and dark energy may mean Einstein was right after all. So we may not understand as much about change as we think we do.

Who else is feeling isolated?

Words: 762 Reading time: 2 minutes 32 seconds

Are you feeling isolated? It’s a common emotion. It’s even more common among those of us who take responsibility, or have responsibility thrust upon us.

What is it?
Isolation: it’s a sense of being marooned, of having nobody else you can turn to. The origin of the word – island – gives that same sense of being surrounded by a cold, uncaring and vast expanse of sea.

That’s not to say that we only feel isolated when we are alone; far from it. Feeling isolated on some issues in an otherwise close marriage will be familiar to some of my readers. The same sorts of feelings can arise among the partners or directors in a business. In such situations there’s a strong, shared bond while at the same, at some deeper level, there’s a ‘but’. The ‘but’ is not about the whole relationship, just one particular issue, or one particular area of concern.

If we can feel like this in a close relationship, how much more likely are such feelings when the relationships are not so close – such as a small businessman with a few employees, or a sole practitioner?

Feeling Isolated Is Not Feeling Lonely
Anyone familiar with these feelings will recognize that feeling isolated and feeling lonely are two different things. Feeling lonely is much more generalized. It’s a feeling that spreads through all the areas of our life. Being isolated, in contrast, is confined to one specific aspect, topic or area. To be isolated – by this definition – is not to be universally lonely, although it can be a part of that wider feeling.

What does it feel like?
People who feel isolated will sometimes describe a high wall, built by them, which they cannot see over. It surrounds their area of isolation. There’s a door. Only they can go through. When they feel isolated it means they have gone through, closed it behind them and are left sitting, helpless, surrounded by a featureless plain.

At other times isolation is just a small room, again, it’s featureless. It’s just us and our feelings of nagging uncertainty, disquiet and irresolution.

That nagging uncertainty, disquiet and irresolution is certainly part of feeling isolated, so too is privacy. When going through the wall, or into the room, we close the door. Nobody else can come in – obviously, otherwise it wouldn’t be isolation.

Even when we hold the feeling of isolation internally, we have an empty space within. None of the other areas where we have capacity (ability to do things) can come in. Being isolated is something we guard very closely.

Isolation has sole ownership, an exclusivity. Whatever issue or situation the isolation is built around, the individual feels sole responsibility. Others may be aware of the matter; they may even be addressing it. There could even be a whole team of folk involved. Yet isolated people feel that only they are affected in some special way and the solution – or at least the key part – must come from them.

If I’m Feeling Isolated, Can You Tell?
Spotting the people who are feeling isolated is never easy. There may be signs of strain around the eyes, or at the corners of the mouth, or in a phrase or a gesture. But such faint indicators may have other causes. And until the individual feels ready any question touching on that area is likely to be denied. The privacy condition will kick in, along with the conviction that “it’s up to me; no-one else can help.”

At best theses feelings erode self-confidence and our willingness to decide and our persistence is carrying things through. At worst such feelings can degenerate into depression. As with most things, just recognizing and acknowledging that such feelings exist is half the battle. Knowing that such feelings are so common also makes it much easier to say “me too!”

What Role Can Coaches Play?
Of course, for me to be involved with a client who tells me that they feel isolated will mean I have been invited through their door, or into their room. Already there are cracks appearing in those painfully constructed and lovingly maintained walls. The barriers are already crumbling. Even so, there’s often much work to be done by the client, although their isolated feelings are dissipating already.

Engaging with a Coach, or an NLP Practitioner, who is sensitive to these issues will help immensely, because the Coach is familiar with similar conditions, is not party to the issues and leaves you in charge of the final resolution – which is just what you wanted all along.

People buy from people? Give me a break.

Words: 654 Reading time: 2 minutes 11 seconds

You may feel the same as me. When I find the tired, foot-sore and weary still being dragged from the back of some damped, dark cupboard, dusted off and pressed yet again into unconsidered service I have one of two reactions. Either I feel resigned (not again), or I feel exasperated (good grief).

As my previous posting was on the tired, foot-sore and weary idea of people staying in their comfort zones this posting will look at the equally drained, drawn and discredited idea that “people buy from people”.

Do they? Do they really? What, all the time? Every time? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at an entirely fictional, yet believable week for you and me.

On a Monday morning we leap out of bed at the first peep of the alarm clock ready and raring to go. Freeze frame…

That bed; do you know the people that constructed it? And your alarm clock; that was your local watchmaker, wasn’t it? What about the building you’re standing in; any idea who…?

Moving on, after your shower using the water provided by that nice man from the local reservoir, you tuck into your breakfast. Of course, you’re not really sure who made the bread for your toast and the cereal in your bowl, but hey, you’re only eating them after all; there’s nothing really important about buying from people here.

Then you get dressed (your personal tailor at M&S is so good) and head off safely in your car at 70 m.p.h. (built by Joe, the guy at the motor works on the corner) using the road constructed by the boys you always hang out with in the bar of The Pick & Shovel. You may smell the flowers in your front garden as you pass, the seeds all lovingly harvested and grown by Betty at the nursery in the next village.

At the office it’s lucky Mr Dell has already delivered your computer, together with a little note offering to meet you for coffee, because you can’t wait to log onto the internet provided for you by…well, you can’t quite remember them all. There were so many at the Christmas party last year; but nice people.

Are they nicer than the people who made the pen in your hand, or the paper you’re about to write on? You can’t quite decide as you take an aspirin, a drug made by people in Malaya who you have never met, are never likely to meet, and a drug the strength and constituent parts of which you haven’t checked and don’t know who might have done so on your behalf.

Let’s stop. It isn’t even ten o’clock on a Monday; how many people have you bought from that you actually know?

People buy from people? Give me a break.

People buy from supermarkets, from Amazon and EBay, from slot machines and petrol station forecourts, from serve-yourself tills and McDonald’s. Most people buy anonymously. They buy as much as they can, as often as they can, without having to interact with anybody. People scare them. A soap on the TV is about as close to real people as they want to be.

So, what is it people are buying, if it isn’t from other people?

People are buying minimum inconvenience and as much certainty as they can with as little precious cash as they can spare.

Now as a person you can supply some of that certainty by building empathy and giving reassurance. If you can convince the other party that you are a nice person, that you want to help them and are not trying to rip them off, then you might make some progress.

People only buy from people when they actually help to increase certainty. Thinking that people buy from people is like being fooled by a three-card trick. You’ve missed the essence of the transaction by concentrating too closely on the players involved.

Change and Uncertainty

It is a common misconception that people fear change. On the contrary, people are change.

People change all the time – from the colour of their hair to the clothes they wear; from the book they are reading to the job they are doing. Even the cells in our bodies change – our blood is completely changed every 30 days.

It is not change that people fear, it is the uncertainty associated with change.

Faced with uncertainty your possible responses go beyond the simple alternatives of flight or fight. Psychologists now also recognise freeze (extreme vigilance while immobile), fright (“playing dead”) and faint. I have observed there’s a fifth – flap – and a sixth – flatulence.

Flap is extremely common in the business world and just as evident in Government. Earlier writers characterised it as “seagull management” based on the tendency of senior personnel to fly in, foul everything up and fly off again – leaving the troops on the ground to clear up the resultant mess as best they can.

Flatulence refers to the long-winded, bombastic, pompous and pretentious displays evinced most often by Ministers in reaction to a crisis. This adds greatly to the public spectacle, but does little to seriously address the root of any problem.

Think of Gordon Brown’s ‘saving the world’ as being equivalent to a local moggie making itself more impressive and threatening by raising its fur and arching its back, thus increasing its apparent size and power.

Mistakenly assigning your feelings of concern or resistance about change to simple fear could cause you to miss more meaningful information – like:
i) your unhappiness with the way the change is happening;
ii) your lack of concrete information about the way the change will affect you; or
iii) your dissatisfaction with a lack of genuine opportunities for your voice to be heard in the change process.

When contemplating the changes you face it’s worth recalling that:

* Change is part of everyday life; it’s part of the endless cycle of birth, growth and demise. You are part of that process, so make the most of it.

* You are not alone. Others will have been in the same boat in the past, some will be in the self-same boat you are and others will join the boat later. Share the problems and form a crew.

* When you know what piece of meaningful information is missing, you’ll know what to do.

* One person’s threat is another person’s opportunity. To quote an old adage – when life serves you lemons, make lemonade.

* The inspiration to live a life you’ll love will carry you long after the adrenaline burst from fearing a life you’ll hate has burned out.

We are often admonished not to be fearful; we should “pull ourselves together” we shouldn’t “be so negative” even though worry, fear, concern and trepidation are really useful signals that something may be happening and we need to pay attention.

If we harbour genuine fears then that is how we feel and that is what we have to work with. “Shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” are simply distractions. Going past the fear itself to the situation that evokes that feeling and finding which elements are important to us there is the best way to capture the value in fear’s early warning system.

That’s putting fear to its best possible use. To do the opposite – becoming exclusively focused on our own preservation, rather than notice what is going on – is to devalue the message.

By way of illustration, there’s a simple story to remind us about the value of focus.

A small plane is flying high over the Scottish mountains, when it develops engine trouble. There are five people on board: the pilot, Steve Redgrave, Gordon Brown, the Dali Lama, and a new-age hippie. The cockpit door opens, and the pilot bursts into the compartment.

"People," he begins, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're about to crash. The good news is that there are four parachutes, and I have one of them!" With that, the pilot throws open the door and jumps from the plane.

Steve Redgrave is on his feet as quick as flash. "People," he says, "I am the world's greatest athlete. The world needs great athletes. I think the world's greatest athlete should have a parachute!" With these words, he grabs one of the remaining parachutes, and hurtles through the door and into the night.

Gordon Brown rises and says, "People, I am the world's smartest and most serious politician. This is a serious situation and the world needs a smart politician like me. I think the world's smartest politician should have a parachute, too." He grabs a pack, and out he jumps.

The Dali Lama and the hippie look at one another. Finally, the Dali Lama speaks.

"Young lady," he says, "I have lived a satisfying life and have known the bliss of True Enlightenment. You have your life ahead of you; you take a parachute, and I will go down with the plane."

As cool as a cucumber, the hippie smiles slowly and says, "Hey, don't worry, dude. The world's smartest politician just jumped out wearing my rucksack."

The magic is not in the mushrooms, it’s in paying attention to what is going on around you.

"Fears are educated into us and can, if we wish, be educated out." – Karl A. Menninger.