The other day at work I wrote a blog post for my department, but since it is not a "personal" blog, it is first a draft until approved - A strange concept for me. One of the problems that I see with this kind of corporate blog is that while the content can be useful and consistent, it often lacks the soul that the audience engages with and has more f a marketing feel to it. I didn't want that for the blog, I wanted it to be thought leadership, but the early feedback is that it should be more "authoritative" in feel.
In my opinion, the most actionable content for mindset change is not telling people what to do or giving them a list of tasks to complete for success, rather it is by making suggestions and through metaphor and analogy that has the largest impact, as the audience is going to opt-into the change behaviors. While this takes longer to see the first moves, once moving, the personal investment into the activity will be far more directed and have a lot of energy behind it.
If looking at this from a time to value (TTV) perspective, a lot of people put the value on getting the first moves made, but not necessarily building the resources to keep the momentum going, which is part of the reason so many lengthy projects start off with a lot of activity, but fall flat very quickly and end up failing to accomplish their goals.
Doing the ground work to build the mindset, gives a very strong and personal why and can develop internal motivation to firstly create and then achieve milestones on time. Building a task list without connecting with participants at the motivational level will see those tasks fall by the wayside, as soon as something more interesting comes up. Developing mindset isn't about "knowing" the right information, it is about building understanding to shift default behaviors to support the desired direction.
A good example of this is the knowledge on losing weight, where pretty much everyone knows it concerns diet and movement. People hear "diet" and think about being "on" a diet, but diet is just what you are normally eating. If your default diet is a well-rounded and relatively healthy normal, there will be no need to go "on a diet" to lose weight. The same with exercise, where active people by default are also unlikely to "need" to exercise. If your diet and movement defaults are trash, you are likely in trouble in one way or another.
However, no one can digest the food or exercise for you, so one has to be willing to do this for themselves. This is hard if habits are not supportive of the desired outcomes, as one is effectually working against oneself. It is like trying to jump, while simultaneously picking up the heaviest weight you can carry.
What needs to happen is that the weight gets put down, so that the energy can be used on jumping, but when it comes to corporate activity and especially secondary tasks within, it is difficult to find the energy when everything is demanding attention daily, adding more weight. This means that a big part of organizational change leadership is not in the tasks for change, but developing the environment for change to take place, with "space making" a key factor. If you want to produce a product as an outcome, a functional factory is necessary with the right equipment, and this is the same for internal process changes also - investments need to be made and time is a required resource.
One of the reasons that I am pretty wordy and repetitive when I write is partly because I know that a lot of people don't have time to read. This seems counterintuitive, but it is about making the space (for those looking to develop) for them to take their time and slowly develop an understanding that affects their behavior by choice. I do not manipulate the reader, they manipulate themselves. This is far more valuable for them as they are able to choose a path and actively participate in the steps that will move them along it. Not only this, building understanding means that they are also developing skills in affecting their own steps, rather than following a guide laid out in front of them.
At the end of the day, while I do hope that people find benefit in what I write (and I know some do), it isn't up to me if they do or don't. It is up to them to make use of their resources to get to where they want to be and the various paths I suggest to consider and the stories I tell might not be the most suitable for them personally.
In my opinion, thought leasers are facilitators of thought, not dictators of what to think. From a blogging perspective, it is more about build a conversational with the reader around topics that they are interested in developing and becoming both an inspiration for thought and a sounding board for thought development, by crisscrossing through topics and introducing and connecting a range of alternative complementary paths to help people own their results, not just get them by doing what they are told. Ownership is important in so many aspects of our lives, yet people seem to want to rent their ideas from others.
Taraz
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