Is Intelligence Sufficient To Let Us Embrace Change?

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We live in a world of constant change.  It is no secret that the pace of change is accelerating and that this is one of the biggest challenges for leaders.  To quantify, the amount of information we encounter daily has tripled since 1960.  Yet we often disregard or eliminate the single most powerful tool we have for managing change, and that is learning.  Consider that any change in our lives requires that we learn (or unlearn) something and that each time we learn something, we are changed.  And the learning we are talking about is not simple skills.

When we face a change, such as instituting a new technology or changing leaders, we tend to approach that change from an intellectual perspective.  We believe that if we ‘get the idea’ of the change, then it will happen.  What we leave out is that there are also important things to learn in other domains.  We need to adjust emotionally to the change.  We need the ability to remain open to the new possibility, to accept that the change has happened, and bring curiosity and ambition to the new learning.  None of these occurs in the intellect.  Likewise, we need to make physical adjustments.  We need to learn to interact with the new system or the new boss in a different manner than the previous situations.  Our bodies need to embrace the change.

Learning to move through change physically and emotionally as well as intellectually accelerates and deepens the process and is the root of why some change is sustained, and some is not.

Solution:

  1. Recognize that people are more than just ‘rational’ beings and that our emotions and bodies are instrumental in how we engage with others in our work lives.
  2. Commit to explore and learn in areas that we all know are important to how we function but have mostly ignored learning about.

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About the author 

Dan Newby

Dan Newby is a long-time coach and teacher working with coaches, leaders, and educators. He is the author of 4 books on emotional literacy, co-creator of Emoli™ Emotion Flash Cards, teaches online courses, and delivers masterclasses worldwide.

Dan was a Senior Course Leader for Newfield Network for eight years. In those years he led coach training programs in the U.S., Amsterdam and at the University of Calgary. He has worked with several school systems in the U.S., global commercial enterprises and NGOs. His individual clients live in all parts of the world and range from executive and senior leaders to front line managers. Twenty plus years as a business leader at all levels gives him insight into the challenges and needs of employees, managers, and leaders across the organization.

Dan’s passion for elevating emotional literacy fuels his writing, teaching, and development of games to help people learn the value of emotions and the many ways they enrich our lives. Dan was born in the U.S., has lived in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He currently lives near Barcelona, Spain.

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