Change Truth #3: Change is sequential … And that’s good to know (Part 3 of Five Truths I Tell My Cl
I’m all about practical change management – with an emphasis on practical. So when individuals, families, and business decision-makers come to me for help navigating a personal, professional, or organizational change, I get them started with information they can apply right away: I introduce them to five fundamental truths about change. Experience proves that when people understand and acknowledge these five change truths, they’re better equipped to cross the threshold into change, move through the change process, and emerge into a positive and stable new normal that feels right and works to their best advantage.
Here’s Number 3 of my Five Truths About Change.
3. Change is sequential … And that’s good to know
In Change Truth #2: Change is decision … And that’s good for you, I wrote that my upcoming book, The Change Course, charts the course of change from Decision to New Normal, and that practical change management can help you reduce change-driven stress, re-take control, and re-gain the power of choice as you cross each of nine thresholds of change. The thresholds of change in The Change Course are based on classical and current literature, thought, and wisdom about change, coupled with the experiences of my clients, as well as my own experience traversing the thresholds of change again and again in both my professional and my personal life.
The important thing to know about the nine thresholds of change is this: They occur in the change process in a standard consecutive order. The sequence of change is consistent.
Now here’s how change is sequential, and why that’s good to know.
Change is an if-then proposition. If X happens, then here are the possibilities for what can happen next. You can analyze and illustrate this truth down to the smallest knowable variable. (In fact, in well-managed change, you actually should.) In the change process, if you walk through one of the thresholds between Decision and New Normal, then the next threshold you encounter will be the same one in the sequence regardless of what is being changed. In other words, because change follows a logical order of progression, it is sequential.
Practical change management reveals and de-mystifies the logical sequence of change. And when a course is shown to be logically sequential, it becomes predictable. You know what to expect, and so you can plan and execute for a positive result, and move forward with far less stress and far greater confidence. In change situations, where you feel a loss of control and you aren’t sure what to expect next, sequence predictability is a port in the storm.
That’s one of the comforting benefits of practical change management.
Read my next blog for Change Truth #4: Change is multipotent … And that’s good to expect.
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