In my work with troubled or growth companies, the major challenge is helping people, owners, and all team members, embrace the idea that the power to make things happen lies with them. I was re-listening to my audio interview for the Rotary Peace Conference in January of this year and it clearly reminded me that the power for success and transition resides with all of us. We each need to choose where we will stand – to support and encourage change or to step away and choose the status quo.
The Choice For Change
With companies we work with and the non-profits we support, the first and most important step forward is helping team members realize the choice for change is theirs. A friend once stressed to me that “the most powerful thing we have in life is choice.” With choice, we commit to a direction that is either forward or backward. The hard thing for us all is taking responsibility for our choices, because then we become accountable for the outcomes. And yet, we always choose even when we don’t select a forward action. Not choosing to advance is a choice to remain stationary and in time move backward.
The opportunity to make choices is a powerful gift. And when we can include others in the process working collaboratively, gathering information and suspending judgment, the results can move us much further than we thought possible. But all of this must begin with our individual commitment to choose the path of change. It may seem like a risk, but as we know, change is the only real constant.
Choose Change
Embrace your individual power by choosing change. It can be a wondrous journey full of many positive changes and experiences that you could never have imagined.
Try it, positive change is on your horizon!
Mark Fowlers:Rotary World Peace Conference interview.