Life coach - Step 66 of 100 - CHANGE - Bring a change to bring the change

Any initiative that you initiate would involve bring the change to the unit, to the people who work with you. But before you bring the change, you need to bring a change and this is the more difficult bit as compared to the change itself.

When people are geared to accept a change, any change initiative can be implemented. This gearing up of people could be due to the organizational culture say for example in the Rastriya Rifles (counter insurgency unit), where the troops accept that everything is fluid - our location can change at any moment, we need to go without sleep, eat the same food for all three meals, take decisions without any orders, restrain ourselves from immoral doings even though we have the power, etc. The culture is meant to breed acceptance of change which is the only constant.

But for units and organizations where the set pattern rules, any change would fail unless the environment is conducive to breed the change. This would be an open mindset, faith in leadership and a grasp of the reality. This is the change that you need to bring about before bringing in the change.

I would love to hear from initiatives that you have undertaken and the steps that you took to make it happen.

As a Training Officer of 2 Training Battalion, I instructed that the recruits will go on the cross country route only twice - once to see the route and the next time as a trial run. And we will win the cross country with just these two practices. Everyone right from the Trg JCO to the PT Ustaads were against my foolhardiness. To bring about the change I needed, I had to bring in a change. More about that in my next blog - Crossing the Chasm