Change or die. Alan Deutschman on what works

In my first post on this topic, I griped (eloquently) about how hard change is. But healthy change is obviously possible.  After all, some people, some companies, and even some churches change. What motivates them? Here’s my simplified version of what works, from Deutschman’s Fast Company article:

  • Reframing. People already know that smoking kills. They may also think that the damage has already been done, and that life without cigarettes isn’t really living, and besides THIS cigarette won’t kill me. Death may be too much to think about anyway, so they shove it out of mind. And smoking is a way to cope with loneliness, lack of meaning, even depression about poor physical fitness. So the challenge is to reframe the picture by showing how much life can improve when someone quits smoking. Maybe they can play golf again, or walk a mile without chest pain, or sleep better and feel better.
  • Thinking big.  You’d think that small changes are easier than big ones.  Not so.  A person who needs to lose weight, for example, could make small dietary changes and experience the pain of sacrifice without losing much weight.  Often wholesale changes are easier to stick to.  There’s a clean break from yesterday and today is a new day.
  • Support.  You can lose weight on your own.  Theoretically.  But if everyone in your house begins to eat healthy to support YOUR new healthy lifestyle, your chances are a lot better.

As I look these over, I see (again) mistakes I made in trying to start small groups.  Few people are against them (OHHH those few!) but if they’re as valuable as I think, we need to reframe the picture so everyone can see it.  And we’ve tried to start two or three at a time in the past (hoping they’d spread like bird flu), and never got past those two or three.  AND we tried pinning them like a third arm onto the existing church program, rather than realigning everything and declaring a new day.

Bottom line:  Change invites the heart into action by calling people to live a new and better way, and by providing support along the way.  Sounds like just the sort of thing Christians ought to be good at.

August 22, 2007 · Filed Under Leadership, Ministry, The Church

Comments

2 Responses to “Change or die. Alan Deutschman on what works”

  1. Follower on August 23rd, 2007 8:48 pm

    But who gets to decide what we change? We have a ton of folks at church…our church…and if you poll all of them you are going to get that many different ‘whats’ that need to change. I feel like Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof when he said “on the other hand, there is no other hand”. We need a small group to study this change thing. *L*

  2. Bart on August 24th, 2007 8:47 pm

    Very good point Dennis. Shortly after Jean and I became members we were interested in a small group but were told that they were all full. Between not being able to worship Sunday mornings and no small group I was getting no nourishment and worship time. Thus after a year of being so involved I had a burnout.

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