Believe In Your Ability To Change.Dr Sammy D.James

comedian once said,A woman marries a man hoping that he will change, and a man marries a woman hoping she won’t.” The truth is that everyone changes over time. We change because our environment changes. We change because of events in our lives. We change because we learn. We change because we gain experience. Our ability to change and adapt is one of humanity’s great strengths that has helped us to come to dominate this planet.

I once read a comment by a fellow instructor of Karate who wrote, “I don’t really believe that people change.” They were saying that while they believed people can make small alterations in their behavior, they did not believe that large, true changes to who and what the person was centrally really ever changed.

I believe that is wrong, and I also believe that it is wrong for a person to feel that way and hold a leadership position. Leadership implies a direction – the leader leads, the followers follow, and the group goes from A to B. Without believing that it is possible to go from A to B, how can a leader get anyone to B?

And that brings up an interesting point: There is a difference between a leader and an administrator, and most teachers, managers, and other in-charge types often fail to see it.

An administrator looks at reports, crunches numbers, references the play book, enforces the rules, and keeps things going along smoothly, perhaps with a few improvements in efficiency along the way. Most business managers are in fact administrators. They receive an appointment to oversee a team responsible for a particular function, and they ensure that the team performs the function as well as possible. Administrators are concerned with how many people it takes to perform the function given various inputs, and they are concerned with how many outputs can be produced with as few inputs as possible.

Administrators are focused on efficiency and effectiveness. Administrators are like accountants made into kings. An excellent administrator manages by dashboards and numbers, and hardly ever finds it necessary to leave his desk. He need not know the people who work for him, because those people are “resources,” and they have a certain “capacity” to work. He can calculate their lives using a computer and some techniques designed to squeeze more juice from a used orange peel.

A leader, on the other hand, is quite different. Leadership cannot be done by viewing an instrument panel the way a plane is flown at night through clouds the way administration can. A leader says, “Follow me,” and moves in a particular direction. Leaders concern themselves not just with productivity and numbers but also with the needs of the people who work for them. Leaders inspire those people to become more, and they believe that those people can change from one incarnation to the next if given the right tasks. Leaders do not merely attempt to fulfill the role of oversight and control of a function, leaders assume responsibility for people.

That’s really where the difference is. The people vs. the function – which are you more concerned with?

Most managers and other people in-charge are more concerned with the function rather than the people. “I have a lesson to teach, and you children are going to learn it!” That’s a good example of function over people. “Everyone, productivity is down, so I need all of you to work all weekend long to help catch it back up.” There’s another good example. Another is, “How many projects can we push through next year? If we replace person A with person B, we could do three more.”

That’s not leadership. Some things a leader might say:

•“It would be nice to be able to go a little faster, but Joe needs the experience.”
•“Thanks for doing that, but did you remember to report on it so that others will see how much you have accomplished? It will be good for your career.”
•“I know we can do this. I’m willing to try. Who is with me?”
That last quote is particularly powerful. It says something important about how leaders believe in and care about their people. Leaders take people who are in one place in their lives, in their careers, or in their abilities, and they lead them to another, hopefully better place. Leaders inspire people to change what they are willing to do, what they are able to do, and who they are.

When you see a corporate executive or a politician on television, and you hear their professional way of speaking and see their professional way of conducting themselves, does it occur to you that at one time they were bratty children with slingshots in their back pockets getting in trouble at school?

At some point, they fundamentally change, most likely because they were educated, trained, and mentored by someone who showed them how things work and coached them to become slick and professional the way that they appear today. Look at the people around them. Some of those people are perhaps being mentored by that leader, and find in them some skills they want to add to their own toolbox, whether they are behaviors, knowledge, or wisdom.

Why would we bother mentoring someone if we did not believe they could change? It seems to me that not believing that we have an impact on other people that affects them so much that they might change is abdicating a particularly large responsibility we have as social animals called humans.

Obviously we can behave so badly toward another person that they can be damaged through their interaction with us. We see stories about this regularly where children were mistreated and grow up to be dysfunctional adults. We also see the results of adults suffering behavioral, mental, and emotional instability following particularly stressful events. We all know we can affect someone negatively.

It therefore stands to reason that we can affect them positively as well. If we believe that we can, then it also makes sense that we would try to have as positive of an impact on others as we can. There is a great movie out there called Pay It Forward. It is the story of a boy who organizes a campaign that encourages people to do small kindnesses for one another, but instead of saving up to repay the favor to the person from whom it was received, he suggests that they repay it to a different person, and thereby create a chain reaction of kindness in the world which elevates the human experience.

If you desire to lead your Karate club rather than merely teach people how to do Karate, there’s more to it than showing up, counting numbers, naming techniques, and then going home while following the play book. That’s club administration, and guess what? A monkey can do it.

I think the fundamental thing you need to know to change yourself from a club administrator to a club leader is who is in charge. For an administrator, the rule book is in charge and they follow it. A leader might use some of it, and he might throw the rest over his shoulder.

A leader strikes out in front, not behind, and does so for the good of his followers, be they employees, students, children, or soldiers. A leader not only believes in the ability of individuals to change, he believe in change itself and is willing to consider anything and everything as a candidate for change without reservation.
everyone has the ability to
improve his or her effectiveness.

Imagine that Dr Sammy of the nation’s cricket team walks up to you and starts
speaking.“I know you’ve never played test cricket, but I need you to bat for your country against
the West Indies… right now. Put these white pads on your legs to stop breakages.
Wear these gloves and this helmet. Here, take this bat (hold it by the thin end). Stand in
front of these three sticks and guard them. That two-metre tall bowler is going to run
towards you at 30kph and hurl this rock-hard red ball at you at around 150kph. Do your
best…
“Oh, I should mention that your family and friends will be watching you on television,
and so will four million of your countrymen and 10 times that number of viewers around
the world.
“Your country is counting on you.”
The question is: “How would you feel?”
The answer is… “probably terrified.”
The reason is… that you are actually, and technically, out of control.
You’ve lost the ability to start, change and stop things. Someone else is doing that. You
don’t even know the rules of the game or the objective. You have no skills. You don’t
know what sort of ball will be bowled; how fast it will come; if it will turn; if it will hit you
on the nose, or kill you… When it does arrive you don’t know what to do with it. Other
people are in control because they are starting, changing and stopping things.
Crazy as it is, that scenario is not unlike putting a brand new chief executive into a
television studio to go “live” on national television with a top interviewer. He or she will
also be out of control. They don’t know the rules. And running through his or her mind
will be a host of questions about lack of control… Will the first question be easy or
hard? Which camera is working? Is my suit wrinkled?
What am I meant to say? Will I make a goose of myself in front of my family and friends,
and all of my countrymen?
rogenSi defines control as having the ability to start, change and stop things. And it is
this ability among many that we give to those we train in media skills, presenting,
leadership, negotiation and selling.
In media skills for example, we ask the question, what can you control? The answers
include: the venue, the timing, the subject matter, the statements you will make, and if you do it properly, the issues that will be covered, the first question…and whether you
even speak at all.
Being out of control is the same when we speak in public for the first time. Again, we do
not know the rules. We ask: Where do I look? What should I say? What do these
listeners expect? What if I fail? What should I do with my hands? Is my fly open? Will
the PowerPoint work? Which slide is next?
And again rogenSi gives presenters control by explaining the rules of presenting,
showing them how to start their presentation, how to change from one area to the next
and how to stop it. By doing so, we are changing their mindset and ultimately their
behaviour on stage. And control is key to every facet of the presentation.
For example, good presenters will not move aimlessly around the stage without a
purpose, they will start in one place, change to another, stop, then start speaking…then
repeat it. Start, change and stop.
A good presenter’s gestures will start, change and stop. Using no gestures is unnatural.
Endless gestures simply distract.
Voice also starts, changes and stops. By using pauses, by raising and lowering volume
by adding inflexions…we start, change and stop voice.
Each segment of the presentation flow starts, changes and stops. The agenda has a
beginning, a middle and an end, so does each part of the body, so does the summary
and conclusion.
And control extends to leading meetings. A good leader, as chairman, shows control by
starting the meeting, changing from one agenda item to another and stopping the
meeting. He or she takes comments from the audience by asking someone to start
speaking, listening while they do so and then stopping them by thanking or
acknowledging the contribution. The chairman will then change to someone else and
have that person speak, again acknowledging their comment before moving on. Start,
change and stop. If the chairman does not start, change and stop things, the meeting
will be chaotic and everyone talking at once, with the strongest winning and the
weakest hating the process.
In selling, control is essential. We get control by starting the sales call, by using
questions to change from one issue to the next, by closing and ending the meeting. If
you want to control a client meeting, try sending an agenda in advance. If you can use
that agenda, you will have a degree of control over the meeting.
Control is essential when fighting a crisis or issue. If your business is being attacked by
another party, or by the media, ask yourself: “Are we starting, changing or stopping
things or are we just responding to tactics set by others? Who is leading the debate?
Are we deciding the playing field or are we playing on someone else’s? Who is in
control?