When I work with groups through my team building program, making suggestions for strategic planning, creating new ideas, and helping to create action plans, change seems easy. At least, easy for me. That’s because I’m guiding and suggesting plans for someone else. It’s so easy for me to drive or fly home from a program feeling self-satisfied, knowing I’ve made a difference for a group needing a catalyst to evolve or just regroup. But after a month of intense strategic planning for my own business, I’m not so smug! This is hard: stopping the day-to-day busy work, making time to reflect, to dig deeper, to absorb way too much information and to synthesize it all into a logical way forward that makes sense intellectually and also feels right. It has to ‘feel right’ to work, to engage us and to sustain us, as we move forward with new ideas.
What have I learned about this process by slogging through it for my own business?
- It’s hard
- It’s worthwhile
- It’s overwhelming
- It’s satisfying
And we need help from the outside to move from our old models, to shake things up. I spent most of my time the past month either on the phone with potential consultants, or sifting through their information and advice online. I had a point person, my brother Jim, who assumed the constant “let-me-bounce-this-off-you” role. It’s very important to have some one who has some distance and can help us sift through the often overwhelming input, conflicting suggestions and new knowledge we’re acquiring.
I’m renewed, refreshed, and ready to use some of my new found, ’empathy’ with my next client, Quorum Health Resources. I bet that during our group debrief with Quorum, I’ll have a little more understanding of just how hard it is to commit to change, to stick with an action plan and to share the confusion that often comes with the process. I can’t wait! BTW: Stay tuned for updates on how my own plan forward goes, I’m excited to be working with a consultant, Jessica Levin of Seven Degrees Communications. Find out more about Jessica at http://sevendegreescommunications.com/
I stepped into the role of auctioneer at a recent MPI chapter meeting, that was new for me. I made up for my lack of experience by smiling a lot.
I hope you’ll visit us at kidbillymusic.com to find out more about creativity, innovation and living with enthusiasm.
Billy Kirsch