Summer vacation has ended, and so has the big trip to see family. During our trip, my brother unintentionally provided a great observation on change.

He has had a lot happen recently. He finally found and married the woman of his dreams and ended his wild and crazy single days. He bought his first home; became neighbors with his mother-in-law and brother-in-law; became an uncle to a severely autistic boy; changed jobs from a big company to a start-up; began working out of the spare bedroom; turned 40; and became a father himself. On top of all this, his wife broke her foot three weeks after giving birth. The poor guy is definitely going through change.

In the middle of a long conversation about all that has happened, his wife called from the bedroom: “David…  John needs to be changed.”

My brother, physically tired, but filled with fresh memories of his recent lifestyle, arose from the couch, and observed, “John likes to be changed a lot more than me.”

His cynical observation is worth putting into a change management context. Unless the current situation is outright unpleasant, nobody will want change. The leader’s job is to show why the new way is better than the current.

In defense of my brother, he couldn’t be happier. He is just going through the process of change, and realizes denial and anger won’t help. He also realizes he can’t really bargain with a woman with a broken foot. If possible, he is happy and depressed at the same time. (Either that, or he needs to be less subtle in bargaining with me to change the diaper!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Change Management.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.