Patricia McLagan - Change Is Everybody's Business

Dedicated to my Mom and Dad, who lived through the turmoil and promise of the 20th century and almost saw its passing.

Bernice Moldenhauer (1919–1996)

Harry Moldenhauer (1904–1996)

THANKS for being transition people, for bringing me into this fascinating and changing world, and for encouraging me to make my mark in it!!

HAVE YOU EVER eaten an energy bar? It helps you bring your own power and resources to the surface. Change Is EVERYBODY’s Business is meant to be an energy bar for you in working with change. I’m writing it because in over 30 years of consulting all over the world, I’ve seen few people fully access their change power. Instead, I’ve seen disillusionment, fear, blaming, “stuckness,” and dependency. I want it better for us.

I want both of us, all of us, to claim our change power – unleash it in ways that help us create a better personal and shared world. It’s something you and we CAN do. The question is, “WILL we?”

Whatever role you play at work or at home, you are a force in change. Mail clerk or CEO, salesperson or factory worker, leader or follower, wife or husband, old or young – you are an active participant in the changes around you. And you have choices in the roles you’ll play. You can choose how you think about what’s happening around you. And you can choose your actions. These choices are the heart of “empowerment.” And empowerment is a gift we give ourselves, not something that others bestow.

Change Is EVERYBODY’s Business is about personal empowerment – from the inside out. It focuses on personal power at work, but it is relevant to all areas of life. Chances are that by developing your change power at work, you will become more powerful wherever you go.

My role in this book is to remind you about what you already know but may not be fully acting on. It is to remind you that your actions or indifference help to create the world as we know it. That’s your external impact. Your thoughts also create the world as YOU know it – your inner world. This is a lot of power. I’d like to help you learn or ascertain how to access and use that power.

I hope you will find many interesting, provocative, and awakening messages in Change Is EVERYBODY ‘s Business to help you navigate the churning waters that change inevitably causes. That’s my mission. Let me know what happens for you.

Many thanks to several dear friends and colleagues who carefully read and helped me shape Change Is EVERYBODY ‘s Business :

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I’m grateful for your support and friendship!

Change is a topic we never seem to learn enough about. The phenomenal success of Who Moved My Cheese, whose Foreword I also wrote, is evidence to that. We feel exhilarated, yes, but also overwhelmed and out of control in a world that continually moves our cheese. We need to rethink our roles and reactions.

This book picks up where Who Moved My Cheese left off. It distills a wealth of knowledge and practice. It is readable and a kind of “field guide” for dealing with change, whoever and wherever you are. The bottom line is that, with the help of insights and tips in this book, you can mine and claim your change power. It’s in your reach – in everybody’s reach.

There are many books out there on empowerment and change, including my own, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute . In this field, Change Is Everybody’s Business has a special place. It expresses many profound ideas, but in a simple and approachable way. It is brief, but presents important and broad perspectives. It is practical, but clearly grounded in a wise and deep understanding of people at work, people in change.

Specifically, Change Is Everybody’s Business makes it clear that our beliefs, character and actions create us and our world of work. And, it shows us how to be powerful players in shifting sands, whatever our job, whatever our formal authority.

Pat McLagan has been influential in the change management field for years, working on change in executive meeting rooms and in the trenches. She’s hung in there with management boards, leadership groups, change facilitators, and the people themselves – as they struggled with new directions and challenges. She’s supported change in just about every kind of organization, numerous industries, with all kinds of people, and in many countries – including South Africa before, during and after the end of apartheid.

So, what she writes about here isn’t the latest catchy idea. It’s grounded in gritty experience and a lifetime of paying attention to how change happens in people and at work. In this simple and short book, she distills a wealth of knowledge and experience, making it fresh and accessible to all of us for action.

For example, it’s refreshing to recognize that resistance is a wake-up call rather than a problem to avoid… that leaders need to be committed learners rather than having to put up a front of perfection… that we can use rather than deny emotions. We can act as though each of us is a business within the larger business. And, as she says in Action Lesson #3, “.. put yourself in the driver’s seat. Don’t hand your management of yourself over to anyone – not to human resources, not to manage-ment – not to anyone else.” This isn’t a call to mayhem. It’s a call to responsible and conscious use of power.

It’s in both our and our organizations’ best interests to respond to this call to claim our change power – to make change everybody’s business. Enjoy!!

Change Is EVERYBODY ‘s Business is about your change power at and around work. But you can’t really separate your life and work. You’ve got to focus on both in order to make change your friend. To make it something you revel in and walk into, rather than away from.

This book will help you develop the point of view and the practices for thriving in change. It will help you see its important role in your life and work. You’ll be better able to influence its impact on you and on the people you work with and for. Change Is EVERYBODY’S Business does the following:

Part 1: Powerful Beliefs. Your beliefs drive many of your actions. They also help shape how you view the world around you. You’ll examine seven important belief areas, make your own current beliefs more conscious, and commit to beliefs that will best shape your future.