A Lesson From My Wife In Change Formulation
It may be a strange place to look for change, but the following fable is a lesson from my wife in change formulation:
In our previous post, we discussed change, what it is and why its important to get right.
Change
In every walk of life, we have change. These changes range from as small as a swap of branded toothpaste in the morning, to a change of country you live in.
Your strategy depends upon the level of change required.
Strategy, remember this word because if you need to enact the change, you need a strategy.
Change Formulation
In this blog post, we are going to use the example of change that my wife enacted (don’t worry, she doesn’t read these posts….).
This time last year, we lived onboard a yacht. We surfed and sailed the pristine waters of South East Asia. It was our full-time home. I fully enjoyed it, but it was let’s say.. a little bit mad.
There were storms, near-death experiences on a weekly bases, volcanoes, big waves and more than one occasion far too much water inside the boat.
Safe to say, it was a wild existence.
My enthusiasm for near-death and instability is a somewhat strange attraction. However, for my beautiful wife, alas, it was not.
She needed a change.
She needed a strategy, a plan…
She needed to formulate a change plan.
But how can you change someone’s mind who is surfing, sailing and living a nomadic existence close to somewhat perfection (or so they saw it)?
She needed to enact the plan of Change.
State the change
This went something like this;
“George, I am sick and tired of being in fear of my life every day while sailing in some of the most treacherous waters in the world. I want us to move back to the land where its safer and the world is not rolling around daily.”
See what she did there, she stated the change, she had a slogan; “Move back on land”.
She needed to refine the objective, though. She needed date and location. She also did that (It went something like this).
“George, in February of 2020, we need to move back onto the land. I want to move to Moscow.”
She had a slogan of the objective; she had refined the objective and had an idea of success in her mind.
Work Backwards
This may sound like a strange thing to say. But when you want to enact a change, you need to work backwards.
Get an idea of the final picture that you want, and then work backwards. Using the same example above, my wife also did this:
She had a statement:
Move on land
She had a time scale:
February 2020
She understood the reasons for the change:
Does not want to be in fear of her life daily
She then worked backwards from the above and planned meticulously what needed to happen and when. We needed somewhere to live, we needed to store the boat somewhere (put it up for sale) and gain all the necessary paperwork for an Englishman to move to Russia (this in itself needed a change plan).
Plan the steps
She plotted out, working backwards what needed to happen when and had a good idea of the steps that needed to be taken:
- Move George to Moscow
- Find somewhere to live.
- Arrange Visa’s
- Job
- Sell the boat
- Sail the boat to somewhere accommodating
There are many more sub-steps to the above list. But what I want to show is that even convincing even the most stubborn, set in their ways of people can become simple, with a formulated refined change plan.
Plan for successful change
Change is always difficult, and for it to be successful, it needs to be planned out in a timescale that suits. Formulation of a plan is the first step to enact change. We will be discussing in the next post what that plan looks like and how you too can plan for change.
The above example of change may seem complex. But in reality, when placed in individual steps, it becomes much less overwhelming.
It’s much the same in manufacturing, lots of change in a concise period, and that time can drag on and on if not carefully planned. Suppose you want to look about how to change manufacturing plans. Or even start a new plan get in touch here.
We can help change your manufacturing plans in China and give support wherever in the world you may be.
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