Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck between a rock and another rock. You don’t have room to breathe or move. You desperately need air and space and don’t have the energy to push the rocks apart to get it.
If you’re one of those people stuck in a merger that just can’t seem to resolve itself, that may be how you’re feeling. If you’re in a job that is a bad match and you have no concept of what would be better, that’s the feeling. If your company just went belly up and nobody told you until you read it in the paper, that’s the feeling.
There are many business writers who address the problem, the emotion, and the strategy for moving the rock out of the way. Spencer Johnson’s book, Who Moved My Cheese?, has been a run away business bestseller. His book, 94 pages of big print and bigger pictures, illustrates , in disarmingly simple terms, the complex notion of what happens when what we are accustomed to getting is suddenly taken away.
William Bridges, an executive development consultant and lecturer has written several books on the subject of personal and professional transition (among them, Managing Transitions, Surviving Corporate Transition, Creating You and Co.). He addresses change issues from the perspective of those who don’t see them coming, as well as those who do. Like Johnson, his approach his straightforward and understandable, although his syntax is a bit more complex. The print is smaller and any artistic renderings come from your own imagination. He’s a good read if you want to do something while you’re stuck and want to understand why you are.
Harvard Business School Professor of Leadership, John Kotter, is the author of another business bestseller, Leading Change. His approach is a “how to” for leading successfully during times of turbulence and change.
Stan Gryskiewicz, author of Positive Turbulence and a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, “offers a process for turning change into a productive force that, properly managed can lead to innovation and ongoing renewal.”
The most prolific author on the subject of change and perspective shift was probably Dr. Seuss, (Horton Hears a Who; If I Ran the Circus, On Beyond Zebra, Oh, The Places You’ll Go) who wrote 44 best selling books for children and their parents.
We are, at once, fascinated by change. We love it when we’re creating it and fear it when we’re not. It’s the best of our dreams and the worst of our nightmares.
If you’re stuck now, and feeling immobilized, what must you do to get free?
- Figure out what’s stuck: you or the rock.
- Realize that you can’t control what is happening to you but you can control your reaction to it.
- Become proactive in your thinking instead of reactive in your behaviors.
- Open yourself to new ways of thinking.
- Become solution seeking instead problem stopping.
In order to push beyond where you currently are, you’ll have to care enough to expend the effort. What’s your plan? Where are you going and what’s the role you’re going to play when you get there?
The rock can’t move. You can.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.joycerichman.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.
