The belief and power of change (2)

To survive and succeed, an organisation will have to turn itself into a change agent. The most effective way to manage change is to create it” (Peter Drucker).

A senior colleague of mine who is a well known leadership and executive coach describes himself in his adverts as the “Alchemist”. Many people that have just met or known him often battled to understand how his coaching practice relates to chemistry or science. But, with time they come to appreciate that he is figuratively describing himself as a person that coaches change. In reality, the Alchemist has the ability to transmute base metals to noble metals such as gold or silver, and has the passion to develop an elixir of life, which would confer youth and longevity.

This coach has therefore positioned himself as an agent of transformation, whose coaching engagement is primarily focused on facilitating change in people, as they embrace the power of belief to move from one level to a higher level of life’s experience. My several encounters and interactions with him bear witness to the fact that he is indeed an alchemist. His passion, aggression and energy as a coach can best be described as uncanny, as he passionately drives his clients to commit to change.

I sometimes feel sorry for his clients, because they may in some instances feel like more like preys instead of clients. He is simply unstoppable when he starts his process of challenging clients to commit to working and fighting hard for what they have expressed as their goals. His own commitment to see the desired change achieved and accomplished can never be doubted. But, in all of his passion, the coach is still so loving and understanding. At over seventy years of age, he is a bit mellow, but when it comes to coaching change, he is tireless and relentless.

Change is unstoppable in many realms, but being able to anticipate and proactively prepare for change do us much good. Without the need to keep up with the changes that continuously evolve around and even within us, most of us would not be moved into taking actions that would transform us into the readiness mode. Just looking around us, there are a lot of changes that have taken place, many of which have brought about permanent changes in our lifestyle, relationships, life orientations, and especially how we now do business.

The last two decades in particular have seen some extraordinary changes compelled by dramatic technological advances and business globalization. As a result, the best responses to these changes must be those that result in strategic repositioning especially through business process improvements, business reengineering, corporate restructuring and total quality management. Failure to properly respond to the changes in the macro environment only pose dangers of losses due to inefficiencies, loss of competitive advantages, as well as poor consumer drive initiatives, among others.

For example, some few years ago, there were no cell phones, neither was there anything like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. But today, few people can contemplate life without cell phones and the selfies that they have become addicted to, neither can many just live without being active via the social media. That is the power of change. There is no doubt that most of us want to bring transformation and sustainable changes to our lives, organisations, business, leadership potentials, ambitions etc.

Certainly, we all need transformation to cope with the rapidly changing situations around us and adapt to future challenges, by being change agents instead of just ‘reactors’ to change. The essence of every coaching engagement in this regard is to activate the power of personal awareness in the client to be both a change leader and change agent. Desirable change will always require great efforts to create and sustain, but the belief in the power and benefit of change, as well as the recognition of the pains of failure remain the most enduring drivers of change and change management.

Every true change management programme and process must therefore begin with the renewed thinking and transformational positioning of the leader, who as the change agent is spearheading the change. For business organisations in particular, change must not always occur as a reaction to the changes in the environment. It must rather be the result of strategic planning for corporate repositioning and brand integration.

In other words, the change should be a means of proactive adaptation to the environment and anticipation of possible trends in such a way that the corporate changes made are best suited to present and future situations in the operating environment. In this way, the organisation will not follow or react to fads in the marketplace, but instead provide strategies and solutions that help to guide and direct change in the environment. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

Emmanuel Imevbere