When it comes to tracking change adoption, identifying levels of change support or uncovering pockets of change resistance, data may be king, but information should rule your decision-making process. In my last article, I introduced a way for Change Agents to gather and apply accurate data related to change support, adoption and resistance. It all [...]

I love pineapple upside down cake. If you’re a pineapple fan and you haven’t tried it, you need to. When it’s done right, there are few better desserts on the planet. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I plan to bake one of these beauties the next time I have a bit of time and access [...]

The last article on theBigRocks was authored by our first-ever guest writer.  Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan is an accomplished Change Agent who worked for several decades in the field before capturing his methods in a book called “Change Friendly Leadership“. He shared part of his new book in that post. I would encourage you to [...]

I’m up in the mountains today and even though the calendar and the weatherman predicted it, one of this year’s first blasts of wintery weather caught me off guard. It also looks to have altered the clothing choices of most folks – including me.  A nice, warm coat is definitely this week’s hot fashion accessory. [...]

Ugh.  It’s election season in the United States and the rhetoric is flying in every direction. Since I live in the “swing state” of Florida, it’s nearly impossible to watch television for five minutes without being told who’s going to raise my taxes or destroy my future. Regular readers of this blog know that I [...]

Few professional skills will correlate more closely with your ability to lead change as your ability to facilitate influential groups through critical discussions and timely decisions. Being able to guide people as they define their goals for a given interaction – and then consistently reach those outcomes – is a big part of helping your [...]

So far in this series, I’ve focused on how Change Agents can be more effective by learning and applying the art of facilitation to their routine work. We’ve talked about different ways that people think and how good facilitators pay attention to this variance as they guide group discussions and decisions. Over the next few [...]

Today is the birthday of Amelia Earhart – the great American aviation pioneer. In 1928, she became the first woman to accomplish a transcontinental flight. Today, thousands of women around the world fly planes routinely. Yesterday, America and the world lost a great space pioneer: Sally Ride. She became the first American woman in space [...]

Change Agents are often asked to draft and deliver specific messages as a part of stakeholder communication. Whether a given communication event will take place by sending an email, posting website content, releasing a video or conducting a meeting, it’s easy for the details to fall through the cracks without proper planning and diligence.  Hence [...]

Tip #36: Consider How Your Change May Impact Existing Relationships Today’s post is a picture that tells a story of two ways one can view the impact of change on existing relationships. For clarity, it can help to think of your change as bringing about the end of something and the beginning of something new. [...]

I’m a huge fan of Freakonomics. In their books, blogs, films and podcasts, co-authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt regularly explore what they call “the hidden side of everything”. They research cool topics like aligning incentives to motivate behavior, proving or disproving causality and digging into data related to all matters of systems theory as [...]

There’s a time to fall in love and a time to fall in line. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but while some changes are perceived as being a good deal for everyone involved, sometimes change is needed for less-then-positive reasons. In the world of implementing change, the chances are good that you’ll see both [...]

Change Agent Tip #31 In my last article, I described methods for Change Agents to reclaim control of their overflowing inboxes by, among other things, setting aside dedicated slices of time each day to focus on handling email and using a 2-minute rule to knock out emails that are easy to answer. Click here to [...]

Change Agent Tip #29 Resistance is a very real force that works against your chances of successful change. Change Agents must not only recognize it – but actively address it or they may risk lukewarm adoption, or – in the worst case – total rejection of the change. In the first two posts of this [...]