Change in Motion
Four ways to see change more clearly.
Change is easier to work with when you can picture it. These are the images we return to most often, because people recognize them instantly and they hold up under pressure.
01 · Turbulence
Turbulence does not mean you have stopped.
When a plane hits turbulence, it feels like something has gone wrong. The cabin shakes, the seatbelt sign comes on, and everyone notices. But the plane is still moving toward its destination the entire time. Pilots expect it, plan for it, and fly through it. The overwhelming majority of flights that hit rough air land safely.
Change works the same way. The bumpy stretch is uncomfortable, and it is real. It is not a sign that the change has failed, and it is not a reason to stop. It is part of the flight.
Discomfort is not the same as going off course.
The road may be bumpy, but the only way to the other side is through it.
02 · The GPS
Missing a turn does not mean you will not arrive.
A GPS cannot plan a route until it knows two things: where you are starting and where you want to go. Once it has both, it maps the way. When you miss a turn, it does not shut off or send you back to the beginning. It recalculates from exactly where you are now.
In a change, people need the same two points. Be honest about where you are today, be clear about where you are going, and expect to recalculate along the way. A missed turn costs a few minutes, not the destination.
Know your starting point. Name the destination. Recalculate without starting over.
03 · The River
Change bends, and it shapes what it touches.
A river never runs in a straight line. It bends around what is in its way and keeps moving. Over time, the water running across a rough stone smooths its surface. The stone is still a stone, but it has been changed by what moved through it.
People are shaped by change in the same way. The path is not linear, and the experience leaves a mark. Handled with intention, that mark is not damage. It is the edges that no longer catch.
Change is not linear, and it changes the people it moves through.
04 · The Wind and the Sails
You cannot direct the wind. You can adjust your sails.
Inside an organization, many of the decisions that affect you are made somewhere else. A restructure, a new system, a new leader. You rely on those decisions and live with their impact, but you had little say in making them. That can feel like having no control at all.
A sailor does not control the wind either. What a sailor controls is the sail. The same wind can push one boat off course and carry another exactly where it needs to go. You always have a choice in how a decision lands on you and what you do next.
You may not control the decision. You control how you respond to it.
Turbulent, recalculated, bending, or blown off course, you are still moving.
The DO.ITChange™ Method gives people and teams a structure for that movement.