Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Introduction to Change Agent: Framework, Part 1


The last two posts introduced you to the Change Agent: Foundation and one of its peers, the Change Agent: Vision. I shared my personal Vision. Here are a few examples of other Visions:
     Pro Futuris is Baylor University’s Vision for the next 10 years
     Helping Baby Boomers change their lives through career design
     Amnesty International

The next few posts introduce you to the 6 steps in Change Agent: Framework for Activating Change. This provides you with a process for turning your Vision into reality!

I am also pulling down the June 18 post. Things I have learned in the last few weeks make the material in it out of date.

1. Set sail toward your vision

First, are you living your vision? This is being true to the idea of being the change you want to see in the world.
·         If the answer is no, you know what needs to be done.
·         The answer is most likely maybe. That is OK. You see opportunities for improvement.
·         If you want to change the world, change yourself first!

Visualize your Vision as a complete success. This may actually take some time. Record it in a way that is best for you. It may be written and it may be a drawing. It might be some other media but it needs to be in a form you can access easily and often. Before proceeding to any sort of planning, it is important to know what your vision looks like in its fully realized form.

Next, choose a project to make your Vision reality. This project should create a key element in the process of making your Vision into reality. Part 3 of the Change Agent: Foundation is about creating strategy with goals and taking actions that implement your project.

It is important to get others excited about your Vision. Strong emotions and gratitude validate your efforts. Expect naysayers. There are always reactionaries in the World that want to avoid change, even if it kills them like Harry Randall Truman. He refused to leave his home at the foot of Mount Saint Helens. Let people like that be footnotes in history, not destroyers of your Vision!

2. Now


Focus on what you can do now.  Be fully immersed in the task at hand now. The only changes you can affect are the changes happening now. If you are in a conversation with another person, be fully present. Being distracted subtly tells that other person the distraction is more important. Focusing on the task at hand now is a key to consistently doing your best.

What happened in the past cannot be changed. The past has presented you with the set of options and consequences that are before you now. If the set of options is not enough, you can spend your now searching for or creating other options.

You can only choose options in the present. That is what makes it so powerful.

The future has not happened yet. You have the option to spend your now planning what you are going to do in the future. The action of planning will affect the options and consequences of your future now. Until recently, preparing for the future was a valid use of your time. Things now change so rapidly that you should be creating options for your future rather than simply preparing for it. Preparation assumes that some aspects of the future are predictable. Adaptability is the new wealth.


 

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Introduction to Visions

 A vision provides a beacon to guide our way. It is not a set of laws so much as a set of ideals. Vision is immensely valuable in times when the obvious path is not clear. It is a guidepost to keep us from losing our way.
Visions need to respect the boundaries of nature and humanity. The vision needs to be flexible enough that an unforeseen change causes a pivot in strategies or tactics, not a reversal of the vision. Finally, it needs to be flexible enough to be refined as wisdom that accumulates.
There is a series of 5 visions in the Change Agent: Foundation that range in scope from individual to global. For now, let’s examine the Individual Vision.
Individual Vision
I am not going to try to give you a personal vision – in fact, my personal mantra is “One size fits none”. I want to stimulate you to create a vision that is right for you. Some people will need more than one vision. Personal visions do have some common characteristics, though.
The first characteristic is that your vision should be BIG! It should be idealistic and it should get you, personally excited. With vision, the alarm clock snooze button is a useless accessory because working toward your vision gets you out of bed in the morning. If your vision is not a wellspring of interest and energy for you, it is not big enough or personal enough.
This is your intension in the yogic sense, only bigger. It is the idea that helps you focus on the task at hand. You keep coming back to it in a practice. Intention is not a goal but more of a journey. Think of intension as a gift you give yourself. So is your personal vision.
Your vision should also be tempered by your personal abilities and interests. Making the Olympics is not a realistic vision for someone that hates to work out.
For most of us, our vision includes improving some aspect or aspects of the world.  The very first step is changing yourself in the image of your vision. Be the change you want to see in the world. Your vision will somehow involve service to others if it is a viable one.
My personal vision is to help as many people as possible transform into the creative beings that thrive in the environment of today and the future. I hold the image of groups of people surfing the massive waves of change together - not grasping for the quickly disintegrating security of the “used to be”.
There are certain ethical restraints that a vision must have. The boundaries involve personal responsibility which leads to a discussion about the Global Vision. For now, vision should not involve force, fraud or damage to others or nature. In fact, it should be the opposite – uplifting, empowering and creative!
As you share your vision with others and work toward creating it, you will naturally come into contact with others that see your vision too. Their Vision will compliment yours and provide opportunities to work together in co-creation. This is called the law of attraction. As these collaborations grow, Intentional Communities will form around them. Intentional Communities represent another of the 5 Visions.
Your vision should bring you happiness. Being happy allows you to focus on the now without effort. As you live your vision, expressions of joy and gratitude should become a common part of your everyday life. Gratitude acknowledges the gifts that other people and external forces constantly bring to you. It helps others validate their vision. Wouldn’t life be wonderful if everyone you interact with helps elevate your vision because they are elevated by the interaction as well? Make it so!
Coming next:
An overview of the first 2 parts of the Change Agent: Framework for activating change.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Introduction to the Foundation for Change

The Change Agent: Foundation has 3 interconnected parts (peers of the foundation, if you will) Vision, Framework and Tools. These 3 parts allow you to not just survive all the massive change happening all around us, they help you transform into a person or group that activates, embraces and thrives on change.
The Foundation takes the Information Technology concepts of Change Management and Agile development, mixes in my knowledge of history, economics, yoga, philosophy and business to create this interconnected Foundation.

Vision: Where and how do you as an individual fit into the greater community (Global and Universal)?
There are actually 5 levels of visions ranging from personal to global.
Framework: A guide for the actions needed to take to activate the Vision.
There are 6 steps on the path to realizing your visions. Each step is flexible enough to take into account that there is so much change no one can possibly anticipate it all. The Framework makes heavy use of validated learning techniques developed for Agile.
Tools: Specific techniques and technologies that maintain the Vision and Support the Framework.
There are currently 14 tools. That count will surely change as we progress.
 Coming next
An introduction to Vision and developing a Personal Vision.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Corporatism

One of the great puzzles I have been pondering recently is how both extremes – represented by the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement can have valid arguments. The answer is that our country's system of government has become Corporatism and both the left and right sense how wrong this is!
The representative democracy and free markets that was the basis of our country has been replaced by corporatism. Corporatism is the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.
Lobbyists have become more important than voters in the political process.  Lobbyists are political arm of corporations (at least the ones that get the attention of lawmakers). Politically, lawmakers are no longer bound by the restrictions placed on them by the Tenth Amendment which clearly prohibits the Federal Government from activities not listed in the Constitution. This has been replaced by Keynesianism, which advocates involvement in every aspect of the economy.
Lobbyists are very adept at navigating the nuances of the current political process. As laws are drafted, they provide the subject matter expertise to legislative subcommittees. As the Bills progress through the legislative process, they provide the talking points for debate and amendment. The Bills that become law are typically too complex for the average Congressman, Senator or Academic to understand. That means the Lobby group provides manpower to the Federal Agency that is inevitably takes the Law and converts it to regulations.
This system is not free markets! It is corporate influenced government layered on top of and disrupting free markets. It is not representative democracy or liberty! It is power flowing from the corporate elite, not the people.