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The New Experience: Blog June 2025
My family could not get their heads around this one…. But would I decide to make a permanent change to my routine to incorporate this new and relaxing experience?
‘A sound bath?’ …’Will you get wet?’….. ‘Do you float?’….. ‘Its in a church hall?’ *sounds incredulous*.. Me, preparing for a new experience and trying to explain the concept to a very confused family.
And now I’m the one who’s confused. To be honest my little brain is still trying to process whether or not I liked it, and whether or not I’d go back again. I’m hoping that by writing it all down here I might just figure it out.
It was an opportunity to spend some time with good friends, which was great, but obviously you can’t really chat (and I do love a good catch up) when you are supposed to be listening to a gong.
It was good to lie on the floor with a blanket and pillow and just listen with my eyes closed - so few opportunities usually to completely switch off, except for when I am actually asleep. However the floor did get a little uncomfortable after an hour, even though the kind ladies running the course had lend me not one but two decent yoga mats after taking in my Aldi one (which might have potentially been a camping mat!)
The sounds themselves were pleasant enough, although they seemed a little random to my uneducated mind. While lying there I thought I might prefer a classical music concert, something with a musical narrative - and this is coming from someone with Oasis tickets!
At the end we were offered a little sweet snack (it involved chocolate and peanut butter - delicious) and some warm tea (turmeric and something else I don’t recall but I wasn’t a fan). At that point I certainly felt more relaxed that I had done in some times and I was amazed that an hour had gone by so fast. We all had to check our watches - but no, the nice sound bath ladies had not been remotely dishonest.
So in conclusion, did I like it? Yes, I think so. Would I go back and make this a permanent change to my social life - probably not. So many different new things to try in life and while this one certainly ticked a good few boxes and I’m super glad I did it, I’ll try something else next time.
So this one is not to be a sustainable long term change for me, and in this context, thats OK. I’ll be keeping an open mind though to future opportunities to make change and develop new habits and hobbies for healthier and more fulfilled life.
The Change Resistor: Blog May 2025
How does a Change Management consultant deal with an unpleasant personal change? Especially when said Change Management consultant is a creature of habit and a little change adverse..
At the beginning of the month I turned 50 - a huge, half century milestone. Obviously, I knew it was coming (although 2025 always seemed so far away..). I was not looking forward to it. Given that this change was inevitable, I decided that I better shift my mindset, so that I could actually look forward to it. So, what did I do?
Firstly, I thought about the alternative. You know, its actually a privilege to turn 50 - plenty of people don’t and I’m sure most of them would change places in an instant. Suddenly I’m feeling a bit more grateful.
Next, I aligned the ‘unpleasant’ change with some things a bit happier - a trip to New York with my husband, meals out with friends, a weekend away with family. Now I’m not only grateful, I’m actually looking forward to it.
Finally, I took ownership. If I didn’t plan this birthday the way I wanted it to be then no-on else was going to do it for me. Thats why I was sipping cocktails on a roof top bar in NewYork on my birthday!
What can we take away from this to apply to changes in business?
Consider the alternative - what will happen if the change is not made, maybe you will run out of space, or the business will continue to be unprofitable or the batch rejection rate will remain high. Include this within your business case and also include it in your project communications.
Determine what the positive associations are with the change… and if there aren’t currently any then now could be the time to put something in place. For an ERP system implementation the positives might be an improved user interface, for a cultural change to always hold the handrail when navigating a staircase, the positive is a safe working environment where everyone gets to go home at the end of the day.
Then let people take ownership. Let them have a say and get them involved - like a 50 year old Change Management consultant in New York on her birthday, they’ll be more invested in a change that they have helped to shape and deliver!
The Most Important Project: Blog April 2025
Firstly, an update on Mothers Day (see March blog!). Actual cards were received, plus chocolates and flowers, so I’m taking the win.
Staying on the theme of Mothers Day, this year for me it coincided with my youngest sons 18th Birthday (when the kids were younger I thought once I’d got them to 18 I could sit back and relax - job done - but spoiler alert - the job is NEVER done!!). It was a good time for me to reflect on the whole parenting journey to date, now I’m the proud mum of 2 young adults.
It really is the most important project you’ll ever be privileged to lead and goodness does it fly by. But just for a second just imagine if you only focussed on the technical side of bringing up your child - ticking all the parenting boxes. School. Tick. Learning to ride a bike. Tick. Nutritious food. Tick. Sufficient sleep. Tick. Clarinet. Tick. I’m no child physiologist (although after bringing up 2 of them I reckon I might be getting close) but as all parents know the emotional side of bringing up a child is ever moving and extremely challenging. From proving security and cuddles to your toddler to navigating friendships, mobile phones and dating with your teen, the landscape is always changing meaning your having to think on your feet, as each age and each child present different emotional challenges. You simply can’t bring up a child without think about their emotional needs as well as the practical stuff - the two go hand in hand - if not you’d be parenting a robot.
So, where am I going with this? Well, it struck me a few days ago that all projects involve people (to a greater or lesser extend) - I genuinely can’t think of one that doesn’t. It follows that if all projects impact people, then you can’t just focus on the technical side - updating SOPs, installing machinery changing organisational charts. Just like the parenting project, change management goes hand in hand with the practical elements - one without the other just simply does not deliver an effective or sustainable outcome. I think its also the case that like raising a child, you have to be prepared to adapt your plan depending on the feedback you are getting, in both cases open 2 way communication is key.
What do you think?
Always on my Growth Mind - Set: Blog March 2025
I have been thinking about growth mindset a lot lately. I can still vividly remember the second time I heard about it.
Thats right - the second time. The first time I heard about it was when my children were in primary school (they are late teens now) and I though it was something that was just applicable to kids. I didn’t give it another thought at the time.
The second time I heard about growth mindset however, I was participating in a leadership development workshop, and I just couldn’t get over how simply changing your mindset could have such a profound impact on outcomes… and therefore results. The really brilliant thing is that you don’t just have to limit the application to your work life, it has the power to transform across many other dimensions of your life as well.
Setting up my own business, having a growth mindset and maintaining it even through difficult times has been key to keeping going and always taking the next step. I’ve been using the power of yet to push myself out of my comfort zone - as you might have seen, I have moved from being too scared to post videos on LinkedIn…… yet, to having a couple of videos under my belt, plus adding videos to all of my Fiverr gigs!
For me the key is to be self aware enough to catch myself when my mindset has become fixed, and create a simple plan of actions I can take to move myself closer to my overall goal of a successful change management & organisational development consultancy.
I’m also using the concept of growth mindset to achieve some of the outcomes I want in my personal life. With Mothers Day approaching I recall a disappointing previous year where my youngest presented me with a hastily written note on a piece of loo paper! Given they are still teens, I’m taking matters into my own hands and setting clear expectations with them for an actual card - made of paper as a minimum (homemade welcomed). By providing a bit of guidance and taking ownership for my own happiness outcome, hopefully I won’t be disappointed - watch this space!
Common Change Management Mistakes: Blog February 2025
Over my career I have seen a lot of projects involving change - here are some of the most common reasons I have seen for a change to fail. All can be avoided or rectified with a good structured change management plan.
Under communication. ‘I’ve sent an e mail’ - well done you! How many people do you think will actually read it? People are busy, not everyone has access to or is on top of their e mails. Think about who you want to target, the best way to get a message across to them and use several forms of communication (face to face, briefings, newsletters, drop ins, roadshows etc) - more is defiantly more - you can rarely over communicate a change, better to hear the same message across few times than not at all.
Complex messaging. Here is a good time to use an elevator speech. Get all the team on the same page - and aligned to one simple message - what the change is, why we are doing it and, ideally what the benefits are.
Not listening to concerns. That is, really listening to the people who are impacted by the change - not just paying lip service. If a restructure won’t work because you’re unaware you are taking away key resources better to know now than 5 years down the line when there’s a huge unfillable hole.
Insufficient resource. Its another project of many, another priority. The fluffy people stuff is nice to have but time-consuming and can be skipped. All well and good until its go live day and no-one is aware of what they need to do differently and you can’t get customer orders out of the door.
No change is actually needed. Assumptions made about a process or a behaviour, no data or business case review up front. A lot of time can be wasted on the wrong thing if you fail to plan your change up front.
Not aligning with stakeholders… and the day before go live John from Regulatory says no.. this can be avoided by understanding who your stakeholders are and ensuring you understand their needs.
Failing to sustain. ‘We used to do it like that 5 years ago… yeah, then Karen left and it all went back to how it was’. Make sure there is a plan in place to prevent slipping back to the old way once the project team has moved on.
Failure to measure. All the project actions have been completed but there’s no metric in place to measure the before and after.
Not understanding all the impacts. It tempting to just crack on with a project without fully planning and working cross functionally to determine all the areas which will be impacted. Working in this way means you will probably miss something - and it could be critical.
Change fatigue. Changes in personnel, new leadership, new products, new production lines, new business processes, all sucking up resources and changing the business. Sometimes the right thing to do is to hold off another change or really plan and prioritise your projects to get the best results.
Change not adopted. The old pens were still available and no-one was assigned to order the new ones. By making it easier to adopt the new behaviour than the old one you can make change adoption easy - old pens in the bin and new ones distributed to everyone :)