I’ve had the pleasure of re-reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (it is excellent every single time). I picked the book up again during vacation because I felt the need to revisit his thoughts, opinions, and ideas. While reading the book… I found myself relating much of his teaching to that of change management and social media adoption in organizations.
“It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors…. We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.” -Stephen Covey, page 31
Much of Covey’s book is based around the concept of changing identity rather than personality. If you read any book by any self-help guru… you will realize that much of change management is about changing identity rather than personality.
First. You must change the internal identity (brand) of a company before the personality (communication) will be open to change… we are talking about internal and external communication. Look deep within your organization and redraft your brand strategy.
Second. You must find the root of the problem. We all know what playing in the tree means… just staring a Facbook or Twitter account without planning and strategy… rockabye baby.The root of the problem is (more than likely) fear of the unknown. Fear of changing and making a misstep into the unknown…. stepping off an edge hoping, HOPING that a bridge will catch your fall.
Third. Plan to make the minor changes and transform your organization. Covey says it best when he states that minor changes will help you focus on achieve the quantum improvements in your life… or company.
Listen to the public. Listen to your employees. Listen to your contractors. Listening is the best way to adjust and make those minor changes to transform and jump into the world of… instant and effective communication.
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