Comments to: crs@uvm.eduReviewed as of 4/20/98
THIS DOCUMENT WAS PRODUCED BY THE NEW ENGLAND REGIONAL LEADERSHIP
PROGRAM. IT IS POSTED BY THE CENTER FOR RURAL STUDIES FOR PUBLIC
USE. THE CENTER FOR RURAL STUDIES ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR
THE CONTENTS. FOR MORE INFORMATION, REFER TO THE USERS GUIDE.
UNIT 4: BUILDING SKILLS TO CREATE AND MANAGE CHANGE
INTRODUCTION
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. W.B. Yeats
Change is inevitable. In a progressive
country change is constant. Benjamin Disraeli
Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin forever down
the ringing grooves of change. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
We view change from a number of perspectives. Some change is
predictable, some is not. Some change is voluntary, some happens
to us. We seek to change ourselves, we seek to change our
community. Whatever the perspective, however, change is
transition, movement from condition to another.
Whether we initiate change or whether it is thrust upon us, it
is helpful to find out what is in store for us, as a means of
increasing our sense of personal power. When we move from the old
to the new, as individuals or as organizations we can increase our
power to manage change by adopting some guidelines for transition,
offered by author William Bridges:
l) Take your time.
2) Arrange temporary structures.
3) Don't act for the sake of action.
4) Recognize why you are uncomfortable.
5) Take care of yourself in little ways.
6) Explore the other side of change.
7) Get someone to talk to.
8) Find out what is waiting in the wings of your life.
9) Use this transition as the impetus to a new kind of
learning.
10) Recognize that transition has a characteristic shape
þ endings
þ neutral zone
þ beginnings
The materials that follow will focus on three aspects of
change that leaders will face in their personal lives and in their
roles as leaders:
The first exercise deals with creating personal change,
building on some of the skills learned in the centering exercises,
allowing participants to practice changes they'd like to make in
their own lives.
The second exercise will build skills for managing change of
various types: voluntary, involuntary, predictable, and
unpredictable. It assumes that we have already managed change in
the past, and so starts with the creation of a lifeline which shows
changes over time.
Finally, we include an exercise that will help participants
think through change at the community level.
The preferred format for these exercises is a combination of
working alone, discussing or "processing" that work in small
support groups of two to five people, and larger group discussion
capturing what people learned in the various exercises, a sharing
of personal insights.
Before reviewing some assumptions about change and plunging
into the exercises, we might prepare: "Let your loins be girded
about, and your lights burning," says St. Luke, obviously in
anticipation of change of some sort! As we look to change in our
own futures, and the future of our communities, with what should we
gird ourselves? Which lights do we burn? A contemporary author,
Margo Adair, gives us a partial list, in a section of her book
Working Inside Out:
þ time
þ patience
þ vision
þ beliefs and values
þ conviction
þ passion
þ support from others
þ mutual respect for differing views
Adair believes all of us are responsible for our country's
future, and calls for others to see change as within our power,
suggesting, in the words of Vincent Harding that we "enter the
terrible and magnificent struggle for recreation of America."
What kind of people will be helpful in creating the future? Carl
Rogers, the eminent psychologist, educator, and author, says that
these people are living now, that he has encountered them and can
describe some of their qualities. In an essay from A Way of Being
(Houghton Mifflin, l980) he lists the characteristics of people
able to live in a transformed world:
1) openness
2) desire for authenticity
3) skepticism regarding science and technology
4) desire for wholeness
5) the wish for intimacy
6) awareness of process
7) caring
8) fostering closeness with nature
9) antipathy for highly structured, inflexible,
bureaucratic institutions
10) maintainenance of trust for the authority within
11) recognition of the unimportance of material things
12) possession of a yearning for the spiritual
He goes on to describe living in a transformed world:
"This person has hitherto undreamed-of potential. This
person's nonconscious intelligence is vastly capable. It
can control many bodily functions, can heal diseases, can
create new realities. It can penetrate the future, see
things at a distance, communicate thoughts directly.
This person lives in a new universe, where all the
familiar concepts have disappeared--time, space, object,
matter, cause, effect--nothing remains but vibrating
energy."
ASSUMPTIONS
þ Adults are able to change their behavior, attitude, beliefs,
and sometimes, their values.
þ Adults are able to change in three ways: they adapt to
external change, they create change from within and, they
cause change to happen in the lives of others.
þ Leaders are able to use their power and channel that of
others to create community and societal change.
þ Adults have both managed and initiated change in the past;
understanding how they did so may help them deal with and
plan for change in the future.
þ Resistance to change can be minimized by involving those most
effected in the process of planning for change.
þ Power is the ability to cause or prevent change.
þ Individuals and groups both have the power/capacity to create
change.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
l) Participants will observe historical change in their lives and
see how that change has been managed (adapted to or initiated).
2) Participants will create a plan to enable personal growth and
change, based on the assessment process and learning contract.
3) Participants will learn and apply strategies for change in
groups and communities of which they are members.
Comments to: crs@uvm.edu
Reviewed as of 4/20/98