Stretching into transformation

On the OSLIST today, a question about success:

Often people expect big things from organizational development “interventions.” They wouldn’t do so otherwise. Retreats, planning sessions, Open Space forums…all come with the expectation that doing something significant will change things significantly.

In working with sponsors I do have conversations about what transformation really means and how willing people are to transform themselves to meet the new world they are wanting to be born. There is a real stretch in this work for people, to go into somewhere new while not abandoning what they know – the “safe ground” – even if the safe ground is no longer serving them very well.

Fear, trust, openness, chaordic confidence…all of these are emotions, practices and states we need to grapple with to open ourselves to transformation. We need to be able to embody change in order to be there to welcome it when it arrives.

And so for me success is relative, but what I really invite people to stretch into is that place where they can embody the success they want. If they can’t then we have to get real about what we’re willing to do.

But if they CAN get really big and offer themselves up for change, unbelievable things can happen. I’ve just seen it happen most recently in Prince George.

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