Two years on…
(Published in paperback
edition of Diary of a Change Agent, 1998)
__________________________________________________
Press fast forward for
two years. It was December 1995. Now it is January 1998. The paperback edition
of Diary of a Change Agent is going to print. Do I want to change anything?
Well yes, in a way everything, because all the events seem so distant now…and
in another way no, it all felt so real then, so let's leave it warts and all!
People still ask me:
"Do you still keep a diary?" "Why did you really write it?"
"What did Helen think of you doing this?" "What has happened to
you since the book?" "Are you earning loads of money now?" I'd
like to use this space to give some answers and a brief update.
Such a lot has happened
in the wider world. For example, when I finished writing the book:
·
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
had not yet been published here
·
Email was rarely used (at least between me or my
clients)
·
D
·
we talked of the "tiger economies of
·
·
we had not had the huge environmental disaster of the
·
·
our butchers sold beef on the bone
·
oil
companies sold more petrol than supermarkets…
Now in 1998, after a
change of government, in spite of catastrophes and a relentless pressure to
life, I feel a much greater sense of optimism.
Yes, I do still keep a
diary and, looking back through, it is clear that the book experience consumed
me. Helen will tell you I was not a joy to live with! When I delivered the
manuscript I felt relief, but early in 1996, harsh reality kicked in. I had neglected
my consulting and money was getting short. Thankfully, work soon began on a
"facilitating change" project, and there was income again.
In the early summer of
1996, invitations for (unpaid!) public platforms arrived. The first was a
mini-workshop entitled "How to spot a faker?" about shared values and
being authentic, based on a pairs conversation using the question "What really
matters to you?" These conversations developed a momentum of their own and
were hard to bring to a close. The session proved memorable, producing advance
orders for the book and invitations to run two more workshops.
The book launch was a
two hour "Brainstrust" session at Maresfield Curnow. Here I found myself selling this rather
odd baby of mine to 30 or so sharp, critical minds. I was telling them my very
personal story and (impertinently?) presenting it as relevant to them.
Delivering the session was a weird, intense, timeless, vulnerable, adrenaline
experience, and at the end strangely anti-climactic. Perhaps this was a sort of
personal rite of passage, a transition to a new career phase, seeking some sort
of acceptance from my peers.
There followed sessions
at the Strategic Planning Society, Ashridge, South
Bank, Lancaster and Middlesex. I learned the hard way about the need to prepare
thoroughly and then almost to throw away the notes in order to connect
authentically with the audience. Most of this work was unpaid, but provided a
chance to sell books and to indulge in conversations about reflection, change,
the diary method, authenticity, double-loop learning and so on. I developed a
five-minute demo of the power of reflection that brings a mood conducive to
deeper dialogue.
A short, live TV
interview broadcast on a satellite channel was harrowing at the time, but I
have yet to meet anyone who watched it!
There was a memorable
session in a coaching firm. The participants, experienced coaches, talked at me
without listening to one another. Perhaps they had a heightened need to talk
having exhausted their own capacity for listening. At a restaurant afterwards,
my host asked me why I had needed to write the book. I said I wanted to provide
an example of double-loop learning, which was true, but under his scrutiny I
found a deeper "existential" need: like the coaches earlier, I needed
to exist, to be recognised for who or what I am.
I now realise that
everyone, at some level, has an existential need. We all need to be reminded we
exist, that we're OK, valued and accepted by other people. And I'm no different
except I did it this way. So if that was my underlying reason for writing the
book, one question is settled, and another arises: what do I do next?
During 1997 three
specific developments helped me find a way forward. The first of these was an
invitation to work with a charity called The Centre for Tomorrow's
Company. Under the inspired leadership
of Mark Goyder, Stuart Hampson
(of John Lewis Partnership) and others, the Centre is a think tank and
influencer, with several of Britain's leading business organisations in
membership, promoting "an inclusive approach" to customers, staff,
suppliers, shareholders and the wider community. By quite different routes, we
seem to have reached a similar conclusion: that sustainable business success
depends on how we address people and relationships.
I'm currently spending
about 30% of my time working with the Centre, some of it fee paying, but a lot
for free. I find this work exciting because it offers an entirely new way of
helping companies develop. I'm making a contribution to something larger and
gaining the chance to work in a team.
A second development was
an invitation to join an on-line conference called Chautauqua (named after a
lake in
A
final decisive development was being encouraged by Tessa, a fellow consultant,
to express my personal vision in a pictorial way. During this exercise I kept
thinking of a Nike ad with a long-necked basketball player wearing Nike
trainers, and a headline that read: "feet on the ground, mind in the
stratosphere!" Somehow inspired by this image I admitted to a true, but
until then private, stratospheric aim of "making the world a better
place".
Set in a wider context
this might seem impossible and depressing. For example the world population is
set to double from around five billion in 1990 to around ten billion in 2020.
80% of the wealth of course is owned by 20% of the people living mainly in the
Northern Hemisphere. Our children are growing up in a very different world from
us, where power and wealth is becoming much more concentrated. Currently 51 of
the largest 100 economies are not nations but multinational companies. This is
due to expand to around 75 in the next 5 years or so. We end up living in a
world where corporations are hugely powerful, governments can be impotent,
people are often treated as expendable, and the experience of work can be
alienating and stressful. Production is being re-located to low labour cost
areas such as
More optimistically, the
consumer boycott of Shell petrol stations in
With these examples in
mind, I realised (blindingly obvious again I'm afraid!) that improving the
world is not just my path, and that we may each have a contribution to make. I
did not know what my own contribution could be. So when I asked myself
"where is my energy?" the answer came: it is in certain special
conversations, sometimes called Dialogue (that I have written about in the
book). These have a deeply inclusive quality, a powerful energy, and a way of
creating alignment in a group. I feel a gut level intuition that these
conversations may be of greater importance than so far understood. And just
maybe such conversations can help to create a better world that people
appreciate and enjoy more. I want to expand and share my understanding of
these.
I found I wanted to
collaborate with others in this work. I was waiting for good possibilities to
emerge but when I reflected on recent events I realised that some already had.
First the Centre for Tomorrow's Company, and then a short Email that had arrived
earlier in the year:
From: Robin Wood, Genesys, 20/3/97
Why don't we hold a seminar
on Dialogue? If you are interested give me a call.
At first the Email had
seemed a little irrelevant, but now it seemed highly important and demanded a
serious response. Robin and I have since collaborated to produce a series of
one day public events called "Dialogue for Change Agents" starting in
1998. I have also developed a second public workshop called "Navigating
Change" under the sponsorship of the
I hope that delegates to
these events might create more effective and wholesome organisations that
people want to work in. But how do we equip them? People seek tools, but
beyond tools we offer heightened awareness and skills for conversation. Perhaps
the only lasting impact one person has on another is through conversation. The
best conversations enable a person to realise things, to change the way they
think about work, the world and their contribution, in other words: insightful,
non-oppressive, authentic.
If you believe each
person is in charge of themselves, their own thinking, learning and action,
perhaps like me you start to question what we mean by "management".
Might we nurture conversations in the workplace that encourage strong
psychological presence, bringing all available energy and talent to each
conversation - BE HERE NOW? Does this lead on to a new form of organisation in
which work itself is designed and undertaken in a
highly collaborative and energetic fashion?
Around this time I
drafted three guiding statements to define my path:
·
Creating a world people want to live in
·
Creating organisations people want to work in
·
Through conversations that transform business life.
A
final point. Today I saw this book in a whole new light. After
much positive feedback, I have still felt uncomfortable about putting private
stuff into the public domain. This eased when I read about an old Tibetan man
whose family where killed by the Chinese. In tears he told his story to a
visiting American who was confused about why the Tibetan had shared his story.
The Tibetan explained:
"You can learn something from it. Besides without knowing this you
do not know me…and you could not wholeheartedly work beside me or follow me.
Now, if you choose to, you can begin to know me, and work with me, and trust
me. I am real. I am not just a name. I have a heart and a voice and a life
story." (Ref: Executive Leadership, Emotional Intelligence in
Leadership and Organisations, Robert Cooper and Ayman
Sawaf, Grosset Putnam,
1997)
We each have a story to
tell, but with today's workplace so pressurised, have we started to believe
that our stories are irrelevant, that work only follows rational procedures,
policy and instructions, without heart, trust and understanding? If so, don't
we lose ourselves, making our work relationships shallow, our experience of
work unsatisfying, inhibiting our collective performance?
This book sought to
describe an inner journey that many have to travel before they can emerge to
offer the world their best. If you have such a journey to travel I hope you
find the book and the diary method encouraging (in the sense of giving you
courage).
Today my emphasis is on
directing energy outwards, being fully alive and present in the moment: with
family, clients and colleagues. (By the way, I have agreed with Helen not to
write another book before the year 2000!)
Oh yes, I'll tackle that
money question. The book has not made me pots of cash. Last year I earned a
little less than in 1994, but much more than in 1995 when I took time out for
writing.
I'm delighted Diary of a
Change Agent is coming out in paperback, making it more accessible and
affordable for a wider audience. The book has been a profound learning
experience and satisfying because unlike so much of my work, it is a tangible
product.
Farewell for now!
Tony Page