Discouraged that the change you seek hasn’t happened yet?

For 20+ years I’ve led organizational development projects in companies and nonprofits of various sizes.  (Often leading those changes from the middle of the organization.) Including company-wide change for those with a national footprint and for clients in private and public and nonprofit organizations.

It is important to note that even in empowered environments it can be very difficult to lead change.

At at one point in my career I had intentionally joined a company that was deeply invested in empowering people at every level of the organization to make a greater difference.   In spite of all of the time and resources they had invested in making that vision a reality, one of my functional leaders asked me why I had to challenge everything.

Fortunately, we were at a corporate event, where we were being encouraged to think and to challenge anything that was limiting our service, our employees, our results and our future.  So two hours later, that courageous leader followed up to tell me that I was doing exactly what I’d been hired to do and to keep doing it.

As a mid-level leader trying to lead up, I experienced the highs and the lows of trying to share big ideas with people that had positions and power that were much more significant then my own.

And I’ve felt my stomach churn when opportunities passed by that could have limited or prevented downsizing.

I’m not alone.  Even in empowered environments, Change Agents often struggle to learn:  

• When to share a risk and an opportunity
• How to present it in a way that is short and effective – especially with people who think differently than they do
• How to demonstrate respect for someone else’s experience and/or position while sharing urgency
• When to wait for someone with more positional power to do something and when to follow up
• Who else to involve and when to involve them

The gift of a change agent is that they see what is and WHAT COULD BE and they want to help you get there.

The challenge of a change agent is that they can’t turn off their ability to see WHAT COULD BE.   …And often their passion and drive to make things better for their customers, their employees, their organizations, their communities, their nations and our world – causes people in power to feel irritated or threatened. (Which is actually kind of funny – because those same powerful people will later express frustration when their employees and citizens won’t take more ownership!)

If you are a change agent with a fire in your belly that wants to lead up more effectively…