Book: Organizational Change An Action Oriented ToolkitBy Tupper Cawsey, Gene Des
ID: 366773 • Letter: B
Question
Book: Organizational Change An Action Oriented ToolkitBy Tupper Cawsey, Gene Deszca, and Cynthia Ingols
Your Development as a Change Agent
Novice change leaders often picture themselves as being in the right and those that oppose them as somehow wrong. This certainty gives them energy and the will to persist in the face of such opposition. It sets up a dynamic of opposition—the more they resist, the more I must try to change them, and so I persuade them more, put more pressure on them, and perhaps resort to whatever power I have to force change.
1. Think of a situation where someone held a different viewpoint than yours. What were your assumptions about that person? Did you believe they just didn’t get it, were wrong headed, perhaps a bit stupid?
Or did you ask yourself, why would they hold the position they have? If you assume they are as rational and as competent as you are, why would they think as they do? Think back to Table 8.2. Are you at stage one, two, three, or four?
2. Are you able to put yourself into the shoes of the resister? Ask yourself: What forces play on that person? What beliefs does he or she have? What criteria is he or she using to evaluate the situation?
3. What are the implications of your self-assessment with respect to what you need to do to develop yourself as a change agent?
Explanation / Answer
1. Think of a situation where someone held a different viewpoint than yours. What were your assumptions about that person? Did you believe they just didn’t get it, were wrong headed, perhaps a bit stupid?
There was a situation when I was indulge in an argument ith my close friend on the issue of existence of God. My friend was having a strict scientific approach and see through the glasses of sciene only. I explained him a simple thing that science is yet to discover how first human being came into existence and how people remembers their previous birth, what and how spirits works, what is soul and where it goes after a death. Not even a single answer is there with science and it keeps mum on all this which is beyond their labs. My friend has no clue to answer but still was rigid on his belief system. I thught that he was ignorant who didn’t get it so I left him on his view point as I believe that there is a time for everything and when time comes, he will change or who knows science changes his thoughts on science itself.