This question was recently posed by Heather Stagl, President of Enclaria Leadership to a field of change management and change leadership experts:
"According to my conflict management professor years ago, most of the mediators at the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago scored as Conflict Avoiders on the Thomas-Killman Conflict Mode Instrument. In their own lives they avoided conflict but at work they put themselves in the middle of it.
"Remembering this made me wonder if change agents have the same type of relationship with change - do people who want to implement change in organizations avoid change in their own lives? What is your personal experience?"
Two thoughts came to mind in pondering this insightful question. The first was something Moore & Associates CEO Philip Moore has said often over the years which is that in our on-going quest for self-awareness and consciousness, we teach what we want to know. This makes a case that perhaps those of us involved as "experts" in the change management industry are in fact continually honing our craft by constantly learning how to better lead change in our own lives and professions. An interesting thought indeed.
The second thought that came to mind was this: as an expert of many years in helping organizations and senior managers prepare for and lead both large-scale and personal change, nothing prepared me for truly helping clients make lasting and sustainable change like going through significant change and transition myself.
Thus I'm a firm believer in the adage (another Philip Moore-ism) "you can't take a person in and through the change and transition process any further than you've gone yourself".
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