Change Up

Why are we always looking for change?

What is it that leads to dissatisfaction? I find myself quoting Ryan Bingham again (from Up in the Air) "make no mistake- movement is life." What is it that won't let us stay with what we have?

In this morning's Washington Post there was a small poll at the bottom left corner. Q: Are you inclined to vote to reelect your representative in Congress or look for someone else? A: 57% said they would look for someone else. More than half the people polled want change. This is change for change sake - they have no idea what the other person would change, how he or she would propose to change anything, or even if the change would be positive or negative. People are naturally inclined to want change.

Obama tapped into this natural desire throughout his campaign. It was a very powerful and effective message. Change resonates. In our personal lives, we are also seeking change. Just look at the divorce rate, caused by wanting change, not changing enough, seeking change with someone other than your spouse.

Perhaps this sentiment is rooted in our bodies. For as much as we think we want to be sendentary, our bodies need movement. It doesn't have to be constant, but at some point we feel the need to move - even if it is just to stretch. Many people feel the need for some mode of exercise in their day/week/month. How many of us have felt "restless"?

The story of the Jews wandering in the desert gives us a glipse into this need. The distance between Egypt and Israel could have been covered in about three days. When the Jews are punished with being stranded in the desert for 40 years, why do they keep moving? Couldn't they have stayed in one camp for the whole time? Surely it would have been easier to set up a "town" and lived there for thirty nine years and 362 days. So why did they wander?

One answer might be this human need for movement. If the people remained in the same place, perhaps they would turn to other areas for their "movement." We do find that many times when the people are "stuck" they turn away from God. At the sea, they cry out to go back to Egypt. At the foot of Mount Sinai they build a golden calf. Maybe God learned from these events and knew that the people needed to keep moving physically in order to be stationary in their religious belief.

Leadership lesson: We are hard wired to seek out movement and change. If you are a leader, you can try to continually feed this need with positive change and forward movement. If you get stuck in a rut without advancement, people will create their own change and you might be one of the changes. Constantly keep a look out for change possibilities that lead toward your goal. Keep an eye on your movement ratio - change over length of time. Are the changes you are implementing felt by your constituency? Is it enough change? Is it the right change? Understand that if you wish to keep some stability in one area, you need to offer enough offsetting change in another.

Change will happen. In our professional and personal lives we can orchestrate the change or we can just let it happen to us.

Transitions

Lots of people are transitioning these days. More and more of my conversations with people revolve around "what will I do next?" or "I'm leaving my job and I am not sure what I should look for next."

There isn't a more stirring or meaningful transition that the one we experienced last monday night. In the space of one hour, we went from mourning the loss of thousands of soldiers and terror victims to the elation of celebrating the founding of the State of Israel. In this transition from Yom haZikaron (Israel's memorial day) to Yom Haatzmaut (Israel's independence day) I found the profound and the mundane.

On the profound level, the State of Israel recognized that all extreme happiness comes after misery. The dark before the dawn. Jews suffered beyond comprehension right before the founding of the State of Israel. Could we have succeeded in starting a new Jewish state without the tragedy? We will never know. What we do know for sure is that millions of people lost their lives in the Holocaust and then thousands more in the fight for independence. And the struggle continues. Israel has been doomed to sacrifice her people in her continuous fight for survival.
The two go hand in hand.

On the mundane side, perhaps there is no causal connection between suffering and elation. Yet, they seem to come together. Maybe we rally our human spirit in the face of pain and that is what lifts us to the next heights that perhaps we would not have reached for if we were comfortable. Maybe we just have to accept pain as the dark side of joy. Much like accepting evil as the dark side of goodness.

These thoughts can be are helpful when we are in transition. We naturally want to turn our backs on where we came from -- forget the pain of: losing a job, wasting years in a job that was not meaningful, confusion -- and focus solely on where we are going. Yet, like every leadership issue - you cannot get to where you want to be unless you know where you are right now. Use the past. Mine it for talents, passions, clues to where you should head. Embrace the pain as a means to discover the joy.

Counting Up?

This is an interesting period in the Jewish year. The period between Passover and the holiday of Shavuot is literally called "The Count (sefira)." Passover recalls the wonderous story of our exodus from Egypt and all the miracles that accompanied that journey. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah and the beginning of our national relationship with God.

For many years the idea that these two holidays are inextricably linked by the period of "counting" has intrigued me. Each day we count toward the commemoration of the events of Mount Sinai. We leave the slavery in Egypt only to look forward to binding ourselves to the law of God. There are many commentaries and philosphical ideas (well worth your time if you haven't thought about it recently) dintinguishing between freedom from and freedom to. Passover represents a freedom from slavery and the oppression of others. Shavuot represents a freedom to live your life with meaning and commitment to something greater than yourself, a relationship with God.

But what of the counting? As I watched the Masters (golf tournament) this past weekend - and no I was not one of the Tiger-gawkers -- although as an aside, how awesome (and ironic?) was it that Phil Mickelson won this year - a year in which his wife battled cancer and he stood by her through all the rough stuff??-- but back to counting. As I watched the Masters, I was struck by all the counting they were doing. Golf is a game of counting. It all comes down to the number of strokes. You win, not by besting the course, but by besting the other player's stroke count. The lower the better.

Golf is about counting down - the further negative you go as you near the final destination (the 18th hole), the better your chance of winning.

Our counting period counts up. We start at Day One and count all the way to Day Forty Nine. The higher we have counted, the closer we get to our destination. We aren't losing numbers, we keep gaining.

Leadership lesson: When a goal is truly valuable - when you are inspiring people to attain the goal - work your way towards it. Let everything you do and say build toward the goal. Counting down points in the other direction. True, we are so used to it sometimes we don't think about the psychological impact of our counting direction. New Year's Eve we count down to the new year. But what are we saying? We are saying "goodbye". Goodbye to the old year. We are looking back expressing that we are happy to have it over. It's complete. It's finished. We got to zero. No where left to go. Counting up indicates just the opposite. We are looking forward. We have reached the target - but that target is not necessarliy the end. There are always more numbers - more places to go. We achieved this goal - let's celebrate - but let's also inspire each other to continue growing. What's the next goal?