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"Colorado River - Shoshone Rapids." Photo by Jason Wehmhoener. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Change can be unwanted and upsetting. Life gets hard when too many things change at one time or when something we love exactly the way it is, something we have depended on forever, is yanked out from underneath us. Author M.J. Ryan in her book AdaptAbility argues that current events have put us in a state of “permanent whitewater.”

“The only thing any of us can know for certain is that life will continue to change at a rapid pace because the world has gotten more complex and interdependent. Organizational consultant Peter Vail calls this “permanent whitewater,” referring to a time of ongoing uncertainty and turbulence. We can’t see exactly where these changes are headed or where the submerged rocks are, yet when we’re tossed out of the boat, we want to make sure to swim not sink. . . . [Experienced rafters] expect the whitewater. And so should we.

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

M.J. Ryan knows whitewater conditions. When she turned 40, her husband of 14 years and business partner decided to end their marriage. The publishing company she founded experienced a significant downturn in revenues and the entire publishing industry changed. Her 30 years of experience in publishing could not save the company and she had to sell it. She could no longer afford her home and had to sell and move. She lost one-third of her savings in the 2003 stock market downfall. Times were bleak. Fortunately, she went on to create a new career for herself as an author and consultant, married again and adopted a child from China. But none of us can escape the whitewater conditions, and to this day she admits suffering anxiety over any downturn in her business, worrying about what the future will bring.

Ryan’s perspective is radically different from Chip and Dan Heath and John C. Maxwell. For example, the subtitle of her book is: “How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For.” Remember John C. Maxwell indicates that a “survival” mentality is the sign of an unsuccessful person, whereas a successful person focuses on “progress.” Chip and Dan Heath have us riding elephants of change, implying we have at least some control over our situation, even if our beast of burden can be unwieldy. Ryan’s primary metaphor has us victims dumped overboard, swirling in the whitewater, inviting anxiety, fear and a sense of inevitability. The first two thirds of her book are primarily about seeking inner peace and acceptance of the situation using techniques like meditation. I wasn’t sure if this was a message I was going to relate to.

Yet, after reading her book, I have a great respect for her perspective. Ryan has a lot more life experience than I do and her book speaks especially to women and to older people. Despite advances in equality, it is undeniable that women, and particularly mothers, face very different life circumstances than most working men, even those that are fathers. Decisions that may be easy for Chip and Dan Heath or John C. Maxwell to implement have a different emotional calculus for many women. Her book also speaks to those who have a hard time with change in general, whether due to limited financial resources or psychological makeup, and who can be easily overwhelmed when their world is turned upside down. We know from news reports on the recession that there are many people who see the world more like M.J. Ryan.

Now, for those readers, who prefer a more rational approach and are ready to turn off completely to Ryan, you must know that she does redeem herself as a hard-headed businessperson primarily in pages 153 to 195. For example:

“The name of the game is staying relevant, and the life cycle of relevancy is getting shorter and shorter. It used to be that you got an education then once you started working . . . the basics of your education held you in good stead for decades. Now the world is so connected and the speed of change is so accelerated that we need to be constantly learning new skills and tools.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

She also makes a convincing case that the 5-year business plan is become obsolete and we spend time more effectively focusing on immediate term goals. While I could go on about her more analytical and strategic suggestions for change, what makes Ryan different is her willingness to address the emotional side of change and she has plenty to say on that topic that we can all learn from.

“You are not just at the mercy of outside forces! Change always creates a death and the possibility of rebirth. Your life has a trajectory that is created from some mysterious combination of outside pressures and internal longings. It’s part of our job as Change Masters to not just rotely bend ourselves into whatever shape seems to be called for but to use the pressure to become more of who we are and to offer more of what we have to give.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

This section did not appear until page 146 of the book but once I read it the rest of the book made a lot more sense. Ryan’s strategy for those facing unwanted change is to use the experience to discover more about yourself and find a better place for your talents. Her strategy really is a lot more about “progress” than “survival.”Below are some of my favorite quotes from the book.

“When I was an editor, I always loved the quote attributed to William Faulkner that writers needed to ‘kill their little darlings.’ It’s a message about how, in order for inspiration to enter, we need to let go of the ideas we’re so in love with in order to make room for something better. It’s a willingness that everyone needs to succeed these days.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“What’s happening right now to most of us is not because we’re bad or wrong or incompetent. It’s because the world is transforming at breakneck speed and each and every one of us must adapt to those changes as quickly and efficiently as possible. No one’s exempt. Age doesn’t get you off the hook . . . Nor does how hard you’ve worked until now or what your expectations of life have been. Or what you’ve sacrificed for or invested in. That’s because what’s going on has nothing to do with you personally!

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“The best first thing we can do [when facing unwanted change] . . . is get clear on what is actually happening so we can get down to the business of dealing with it.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“When a wave of change hits, run as fast as you can to get help. Phone a friend, a colleage, a mentor. . . . Women more naturally seek out others when times are tough. Men are another story. They tend to try to tough it out alone. . . . The worst thing you can do right now is isolate, despite the urge to hunker down and try even harder to do what you’re doing.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“Forget blame, accept what is, and seek the best solution.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“Self-care isn’t optional when we’re riding the whitewaters of change . . . To have maximum energy, we need extension and recovery exercises in all the domains of our existence: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“[E]xperiences . . . teach us there’s no such thing as ‘deserve.’”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

“One of the advantages of what’s happening right now is that it’s happening to everyone . . . What will the neighbors think? They’re too busy thinking about their own need to scale back to give [your scaling back] much attention, unless it’s to wish they had your worries.”

–M.J. Ryan, AdaptAbility

For more on Ryan’s speaking and coaching style, see the video below.

Do you identify with M.J. Ryan’s focus on emotional recovery in the change process? Please share in the comments.

"Herd of Tourists." Photo by AnnieGreenSprings (R.M. Calamar). From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Imagine you are trying to get to a destination and the only way to get there is by elephant!  There you are, sitting atop the elephant, headed down a path.  What will influence your progress?  According to Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, there are three main variables:

1)   The Rider: i.e. your logical/analytical brain.  Do you know where you want to go and how to get there?

2)   The Elephant: i.e. your emotional brain.  Are you excited about going there? Can you summon up the stamina to make it to the end of the journey?

3)   The Path: i.e. the external situation factors.  Is the path steep, flat or downhill?  Will you be deterred by weather or other hazards en route? Can you take a different route that makes the journey easier or the wrong path harder to pursue?

Switch is kind of a treatise on the current status of psychological research with regard to change and motivation.  The authors have cleverly organized an enormous amount of information around the elephant metaphor above and added in numerous real-world examples of change at work in personal lives, in business and in the non-profit world.

Similar to the Ruly philosophy, the Heath brothers believe that there is one process for successful change and that mastering that process will lead to success in any context, whether personal, business or philanthropic.

Some of the great psychological theories discussed include:

1)   solutions-focused therapy – This is a technique developed by the husband-wife therapist team Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg in their marital counseling practice who asked couples to imagine that overnight all of their marital problems were solved.  She then asks them to identify what visible signs would be evident the next morning to indicate the change had occurred.  Identifying and recognizing these signs is critical to identifying the progressive changes that need to occur.  This type of therapy essentially disregards the reasons why someone got to their current state of problems and makes the person focus on the way forward.

2)   identity theory – This theory, developed by psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser, shows that shifts in your identity result in behavioral changes. (Example: If you identify as an environmentalist, you might be inspired to recycle.)  Experiments also show that people can be receptive to adopting new identities.

3)   fixed mindset versus growth mindset theory – Carol Dweck  developed this theory and determined that you need a growth mindset to implement change.  The growth mindset believes the brain is like a muscle and you can change your situation at any time with enough effort.  The growth mindset accepts big challenges despite the risk of failure.  (Example: Schoolchildren who received training that they can be good at anything, including math, if they just work hard enough achieved far more than children who did not receive this training.)

4)   fundamental attribution error – This theory, developed by Lee Ross, is similar to the fixed mindset theory and explains that sometimes we don’t believe we (or others) can change because of innate, unchangeable personality characteristics.   “The error lies in our inclination to attribute people’s behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in. “ (Example: The speeding driver who just cut you off is not necessarily a thoroughbred jerk but someone running late for an appointment.)

Some of the unique insight about successful change offered by the Heath brothers includes:

1)   look for bright spots – If you are trying to implement a very difficult change, look first for examples of people who live in nearly identical circumstances to you who have achieved the goal.  What did they do that you could replicate? (Example: When working to combat poverty in a poor community, philanthropists first looked to the poor mothers in that community with relatively healthy children and taught those healthy mothers’ dietary techniques to the mothers with more sickly children.)

2)   seek small solutions – “Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions.  Instead they are most often solved by a sequence of small solutions.. . . If you seek out a solution that is as complex as the problem . . . nothing will change.”  As former UCLA coach John Wooden put it: “When you improve a little each day eventually big things occur . . . Don’t look for the quick big improvement.  Seek the small improvement one day at a time.  That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens it lasts.” (Example: The U.S. government’s food pyramid is cited as an incomprehensible guide for healthy eating that does almost nothing to solve obesity and other problems.  More effective have been specific directives such as asking people to switch from whole milk to 1% milk.)

3)   make change seem easy – “A  business cliché commands us to ‘raise the bar.’  But that’s exactly the wrong instinct if you want to motivate a reluctant Elephant.  You need to lower the bar . . . ‘shrink the change.’”  (Examples: A car wash offering a free wash after 8 washes on a punch card had better success when giving customers a 10-wash punch card pre-punched with 2 washes than an 8 wash card starting from zero.)

4)   focus on changing feelings – “The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people’s feelings.”  (Examples: Trying to inspire your employees by focusing on cost reduction or financial goals is much less effective than inspiring them to provide incredible service to their customers or other emotionally connected goals.  Trying to sell to your customer by giving them a PowerPoint presentation with the logical reasons why they should use your product or service is much less effective than walking in with a hands-on tactile display showing you understand their problem and showing them the way to a solution.)

5)   expect failure - “Any new quest, even one that is ultimately successful, is going to involve failure.”  . . . You need to enable the expectation of failure. . . . Even in failure there is success.”  (Example: A famous design firm tells its designers to expect that during the design process there will be ups and downs and that the down periods are not signs of failure but periods the designer must persevere through to generate an excellent design.)

I generally enjoyed reading this book.  It started off very strong and engaging but toward the end in the discussion of making the path easier it started to lose a little steam.  Some of the last suggestions are about making checklists and scheduling tasks—basic time management stuff.  The only other criticism I have of the book is that when you finish it, you feel inspired with all kinds of thoughts but do not have a lot of clarity about exactly what to do next when facing a specific problem. However, if you are willing to sit down and spend some time doing your own thinking, this book is an excellent starting point and a goldmine of ideas about solving truly difficult problems.

Believe it or not, organization is mentioned in the book as a complex problem in need of a solution.  And the FlyLady, a.k.a. Marla Cilley, is cited as an example of effectively using various psychological techniques for optimum motivation in the field of personal organizing.    She is cited as a “shrink the change” follower by advising people to set a timer for 5 minutes to begin to clean up one room the best they can rather than committing to clean the entire thing (which can be daunting).  I also think she is a “quick, small solutions” practitioner as her first commandment is the simple, “shine your sink.”  She then progressively adds tasks like “get dressed to your shoes.”  You could also argue she is an “identity” practitioner as she has her own alter ego and calls her followers “FlyBabies.”

If you want to start applying the Switch philosophy to your own problems, you could start by separating your problem into the three change areas:

1)   Analytical/logical – What do I need to accomplish?  What is wrong with the way I am doing things now?  What do I need to learn more about?  What steps are involved?

2)   Motivation – What would make me excited about making this change?  What thoughts/feelings are derailing my success?  How can I structure the steps toward my goal so that the change seems easier to me?

3)   External – How can I change my environment to make change easier and reversion to my old ways harder?

Can you relate to the Switch elephant/rider approach?  Which techniques/theories appeal to you the most?  Please share in the comments.

Some fascinating new research on willpower has been in the news lately.  The research suggests that our brains are a combination of rational and emotional processing centers and that there is a limit to how much each side of the brain can handle at a given time.  When one side of the brain is “full” the other side is going to take over and make the decisions, even when we don’t want it to.

For example, if the rational part of the brain is taken up processing something like a challenging and complex issue at work, there is no rational brain left when it comes to issues like deciding the appropriate foods to eat and the emotional brain will take over and eat whatever sweet and sugary foods it wants to.

Most of us assume that self-control is largely a character issue, and that we would follow through on our New Year’s resolutions if only we had a bit more discipline. But this research suggests that willpower itself is inherently limited, and that our January promises fail in large part because the brain wasn’t built for success.

–Jonah Lehrer, “Blame it On the Brain,” The Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2009

Although not indicated in the research above, I would not be surprised if it is also true that if the brain is overwhelmed on the emotional side (such as handling a difficult relationship or a death), the rational brain might take over certain decisions that would be better off handled by the emotional side.  For example, some people withdraw rather than getting involved with difficult emotional situations.  It might be that their brain is simply saying, “I am so overwhelmed by this emotional situation that my rational brain is telling me to avoid it and give myself a rest from thinking about it.”

Something also not indicated in the research but possibly true as well is that each person has different brain capacities on the rational and emotional spectrum.  My husband, for example, has a nearly endless capacity for rational thinking in almost any situation, whereas I lean more toward the emotional and sometimes have to focus hard to let the rational side of my brain kick in.  We are a good balance for each other as different situations require different brain processing skills.  Often people convey emotional thinking as “weak” and rational thinking as “strong” but I am convinced this is not the case.  There is a place for both types of thinking.  In business, emotional thinking can be very beneficial in any managerial, personnel or customer relations matter and certainly in marketing and sales.  After all, if you can’t motivate people, persuade or resolve conflicts, your success is greatly hindered.

In personal relationships, rational thinking is sometimes necessary to keep our relationships healthy or make difficult choices.  My husband’s rational approach to resolving conflict between us, for example, is one that he insisted on early on in our relationship and it continues to amaze me how powerful that approach is.  I honestly cannot remember the last fight I had with my husband or what it was about.  Whatever the issue was, it has been resolved.

So, fascinating as all of this is, if you are a person who needs more organization in your life, how can you use this brain research to your advantage?

1. Self-awareness. You probably know at some level whether you are more of a rational or emotional thinker in most decisions.  You also need to try to pay attention and realize which type of thinker you are in specific situations.  Organization often rewards rational thinkers more than emotional ones.  Emotional thinking tells us to hold on to mementos or items that foster a sense of security.
2. Promote rational thinking. Believe me when I tell you this is very hard for me personally.    I know it is possible to have deep emotional relationships with objects. When trying to improve your organization, however, you have to learn to be more of a rational thinker.  In this area, some of the rational questions you might ask yourself about your belongings or information are: How does this benefit me?  Does it make me money?  Does it save me money?  Does it save me time?  Does it promote my health or safety?  Is it in good repair? Is it commonly available? Does it cost me more in time or money to keep and store it than it would to just buy a new one if I need it?  Would I prefer to have a new one rather than the one I currently have?
3. Reduce emotional thinking about stuff by limiting it to objects that deserve it. It would be ridiculous to assume that we all can become coldly rational and toss out everything that does not meet some rational criterion of need.  (Although I have met people who come close to this!)  If you are an emotional thinker when it comes to your stuff, use your emotional skills to discern which objects or data have the most positive emotional value.  For example, when you have a huge stack of your child’s artwork, some of the pieces will really connect with you, either because of the subject matter (I have a great drawing of a “fairy” from my 4 year old I think is amazing) or the situation it was created in (the first scribble from my 1 year old or the first time my 4 year old wrote “mom”).  Try to zero in on these high value items and preserve and organize them first.  Don’t let the high positive emotional value objects get lost or buried.  Sometimes we can be motivated if we think of our role as being a good steward of the most positive memories.  The key here, though, is to try to develop your skills at quickly discerning high value from lesser value objects.
4. Eliminate objects that are an emotional burden. There are items that are highly emotional but promote negative emotions rather than positive ones.  Try to identify these burdens and remove them frequent view either permanently or at least temporarily in storage.
5. Sort your stuff according to your emotional and rational weaknesses. There are both emotional and rational reasons we end up with a lot of “stuff.”  You can rationally justify hundreds of lightbulbs or rolls of toilet paper, for example.  One of the best tools to stop accumulating things, I have found, is to sort the items that are accumulating into the mental categories that address why we are accumulating the item in the first place.  Often just stacking like items together is enough.  Once your brain processes that you have enough of something, you will stop feeding the need to buy more of it.  For example, I once worked with someone who kept a drawer of magazines with “important” articles and was instructed not to throw any of the magazines away.  Since they were important to the person, I sorted them by magazine title and date and put them in labeled racks on a shelf.  Interestingly, once they were all sorted in this way, the person realized that they were just magazines and decided to toss about 75% of them!  Craft supplies often fall into the weakness category.  If you try to sort the crafts by specific projects rather than just heaps of color-coded materials, you start to realize where you are over-buying or whether there are crafts you really don’t want to do any more because you now have something better.
6. Distract yourself from the voices that tell you to stop organizing. We have all been there.  You get on a roll with organizing and then it stops.  Why?  “I’m tired.”  “It’s boring.”  “I don’t know where to start.” With regard to the energy and boredom requirements, this is where background noise can really help.  A Ruly Mix is great.  I like to stream Frontline shows to feed my head while I am sorting papers in my office.  Sometimes watching a television show about organization or home improvement can be great background motivation as well.  With regard to the overwhelming feeling, this is where breaking a project into really small parts helps.  If you don’t know how to unbury your desk, go one paper at a time.  Do you know how to file this piece of paper?  If yes, do it!  If no, why not?  Although it is tedious, sometimes addressing one piece of paper creates a system that will save you hours in the future.  Even if you can’t motivate yourself to continue, at least identify why you are not continuing.
7. Don’t let emotional burdens associated with disorganization drag you down. Organizing is a highly emotional activity.  If you are struggling with disorganization, don’t let your whole life become consumed by it.  Celebrate small successes.  Continue the work.  Remember, we are not aiming for perfection.   You are still a good person if your home or office is messy.  Based on the research above, one of the reasons leading to your messiness may be that you are so involved with thinking about other important things that your knee-jerk emotional reaction to relax is kicking in.  Stress reduction and work reduction may be what you really need!  Give yourself a little credit!

Are you a rational or emotional organizer?  What do you do to distract yourself when your emotional side is pulling you the wrong direction?  Please share in the comments!  Commenters can get a Ruly thank you note if you email me your address to info@beruly.com.