Fear

Ever been faced with a project where what your trying to achieve is so new to you that you have no clue as to how to accomplish it or even have a clear concept of what it should look like?  Well. I’m in this space right now and it’s scary.  It’s hard for a recovering perfectionist  to admit that she doesn’t know what she is doing and that she needs help.

What I am quickly realizing, though is that this space – the space of not knowing and figure it out as we go – is becoming the status quo.   Things are changing fast and we (I) have to get over our (my) fear.

I can do this by:

1. Being honest: admitting that we will have to figure it out as we go and we do not need to have all the answers
2. Asking for help:  We can no longer afford to try and figure things out on our own – it has to be a collective solution

So what gave me this kick in the ass?

Some blog posts coming out of the CPID L&D Show this week:

• Andrew Jacobs admitted that he didn’t really know how he was going to run the first 30-40 mins of his workshop but in the end he figured it out anyway:  I think we all spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make something happen but once we get in a room with people and start talking, things just start happening.  Thanks Andrew for the reminder.
• Julian Stodd’s reflection on day 1 of the conference:

“I hate to say it, but there is still a sense of lethargy: that the changes we make are changes for the future. Because it’s big, because it’s hard, that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do it now.”

Oh you are so right Julian.  It’s big, it’s hard, its scary, and it’s sooooo overwhelming but it has to done.

So what is this project you ask?

A project to help people embrace change as the status quo.  Here is the draft purpose statement:

Identify experts and leaders within the organization to act as change agents for facilitating a culture shift in:

• how we work, learn and navigate change by shifting sole responsibility for learning and knowledge sharing from the company to a shared responsibility between the company and the individual.
• how we view leadership by sifting our view of power and authority as solely positional to a model of leadership that is more fluid and relevant to our current world of work.

Yes, I am beginning to realize how lucky I am to have the support to try to facilitate this shift.

Game on!