Immigrants
That dust was everywhere. It got in your eyes, up your nose so you couldn’t draw a breath. So you breathed through your mouth and the grit was always on your teeth and crunched with everything you ate. The quarry slowed and there were no jobs, and then – America, the land of golden sidewalks beckoned.
My friend Stella, retold her father’s tale of how he came to leave Carrara, Italy, origin of the famous marble and move to Boston. I’ve heard versions of this story several times, from Indians, Mexicans, and Brazilians. An Englishman once told me,
“Americans just seemed so carefree, not at all stuffy like everyone I knew at home. I came on holiday and resolved to come back to stay.”
My Pittsburgh haircutter Mico told succinctly how his family emigrated from Calabria.
“They had the dream and the dream made what they had seem like nothing.”
Immigrants may be the best example of people choosing life altering change. They reject where they live and move to an uncertain promise of opportunity. These are the three elements of a change mindset:
- Rejection of the status quo (case for change)
- Promise of the future (Vision)
- Choice (people may reject “your” change if they feel it’s imposed upon them, but if they choose, then it’s “their” change).
Of course, you have to act. You have to sell what you own, get visas, buy tickets, get on the boat. No change happens until you do something, but action without the right mindset is unlikely to succeed.
Those who’ beat addiction through the AA 12-step process know the importance of steps 1-3:
- “Admit you are powerless over alcohol”(acknowledge “rock bottom” reject status quo)
- Believe a higher Power can restore us to sobriety (a powerful vision)
- Decide to turn our will and our lives (buy the ticket – commit to change)
The remaining steps are all about actions, but the mindset is critical.
The Formula
This formula for change is usually credited to Richard Beckhard who published it in 1977 in Organizational Transitions. The formula was developed by David Gleicher while at consulting firm Arthur D. Little.
Dissatisfaction (rejection of the status quo) the push of change, times the pull of change (vision), times first steps must exceed resistance to change. In the original it was the cost of change, In 1980 Catherine Dannemiller changed cost to resistance and in 2014 Steve Cady added an S for supporting capability to sustain the change.
What I like about the formula is that it lays out the mindset (push and pull) and actions necessary to overcome the inertia of status quo. Also the formula is not additive, but multiplicative demonstrating the exponential difficulty of change.
There is both the dissatisfaction (rejection of the status quo) and the vision (future promise). The dissatisfaction if often called the “compelling case for change – the why and why now, and what we can’t stay the same. I described this as the “burning platform” till I worked in the upstream oil and gas industry where that term is too painful.
I have seen leaders in business and politics lean into the threat of not changing -the ‘road to ruin,” end of life as we know it pitch. Danger can scare us into action, but over time constant threat gets normalized, doom and gloom depresses people, fear freezes people and action is forgotten.
Vision led change is always better and more lasting than threat-driven The grit of marble dust might wear your teeth and spirit down but without the “golden sidewalk” you don’t get on the ship. Wallowing in rock bottom does nothing without the pull of a sober lifestyle.
Vision statements are often emotion laden and sensory rich.
“The land of milk and honey”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident. . .all men are created equal. . .life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . . We the People.”
“I have a dream.”
Dissatisfaction pushes; vision pulls you. Dissatisfaction, rejecting the current state, is reality-based problem definition. Vision is opportunity and solution finding.
A vision isn’t a daydream. “Pie in the sky by and by” doesn’t cut it for long. There must be a plan and milestones, and mid-journey measures to show your change is proceeding as planned.
What happens when you know you can’t go on the way things are, you must change, but what you are changing to is unclear? How can you “leap empty-handed into the void?” Big change is often like this. We think we know the opportunity, but, if we are clear-eyed, we also see the risk. The phrase ‘jumping from the frying pan into the fire” is a cliché because it happens frequently.
Entering the “unknown unknown” arena, where “we don’t know what we don’t know” relies on values:
- Do what is right –“Clean air and water” “Remove shortcomings. . .make amends,” “Taking care of customers,” “People matter and results count.”
- Resilience – “we’ll get through this,” “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” one day at a time.”
- Support –“ What if the sky should fall? As long as we’re together, it really doesn’t matter at all.”
The push from dissatisfaction, rejection of status quo, the pull of vision and the opportunity that opens to values, must overcome what Beckhard and Gleicher called resistance to change.
Resistance may be to imposed change that people haven’t chosen. Resistance may be fear of loss in the unknown. Resistance may be plain old inertia. Remember Newton’s First Law of motion “A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.”
That’s why the formula included first steps, reducing friction, ignoring gravity, kicking yourself in the butt to do something – Action focus -Try-it-fix it-try-it-again
Change mind-set first, bolstered by values, followed by action, is the only path. And if you find you’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire?
Get out of the fire. Stop the bleeding. Get everyone to a safe position. Spread honey on your wounds. Refocus, Persist and Persevere.
Very interesting, I didn’t know that formula.
Without thinking about the case of chronic dissatisfaction, it is normal and human to be dissatisfied from time to time.
Of course, we live in an era in which, in theory, everything is possible, but where, in practice, only a small minority manages to realize their dreams. And it is precisely this contrast between the dazzling possibilities and an anonymous reality that creates a deep sense of dissatisfaction in us. And this places us before two choices: listen to the dissatisfaction and take it as a stimulus to reverse the situation and/or improve ourselves, or let ourselves be overwhelmed, risking much worse consequences. In the first case, there is no doubt that dissatisfaction acts as a stimulus and motivation for change, to push us to seek out what are truly our passions and the things that make us feel good.
It is therefore important to understand what this feeling is communicating to us: whether it is something chronic or temporary, whether it is suggesting a change in our life or whether it causes us discomfort and we need help.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for engaging, Aldo.
I like your three levels, act on the dissatisfaction, by changing, act on it, by changing our reaction or fail to act creating depression , and failure.
Change is always a choice. And change is not always in our best interest. But choice isn’t anything unless we choose.
Oh, Charlotte
I’m afraid that some people do hurt people.
It’s true that some immigrants the dissatisfaction with their previous homeland means running away from trauma. That part still takes courage, as many who work in toxic work environments, or survive in abusive relationships can attest. But to leave, requires a vison of a better life that is only based in hope, faith, and belief.
And it takes getting beyond cynicism -“life is just eating crap, no matter where you are” and depression “Do I really deserve a better life?” and dismissing obstacles. “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” and acting, I bough the ticket. No I don’t know what will happen, but I bough the ticket.”
Change is never easy. Positive outcomes are never assured. But action, getting away from people who hurt people, is a good first step.
Peace,
Alan
As you know, I am in at least two minds about this.
On the one hand there are immigrants who do everything to get away – rejection of the status quo, in your change model, is easy.
Will they succeed at getting away? It depends whether what they want to get away from really is external, because our shadow moves with us regardless of the address of our driver’s license. As a resource for expats, I have met too many who will belong nowhere because they don’t belong with themselves.
Other expats have to chose between a rock and a hard place.
I had a CFO in a former job whose family lived on a different continent. Would you want to go abroad for your career? Even if your family doesn’t want to join you? Would you want to be the spouse in such a marriage?
Others have had their children go back because no way were they going to suffer the American school system. That kind of throws a wrench in the permanent immigration intention.
The difference between the waves of immigrants of yesteryear and for many now is that today many can return. (Some can’t – and then we shouldn’t really call them immigrants but refugees.)
But for those who came here voluntarily in the pursuit of happiness, they probably didn’t expect to find happiness – they expected to find a toe hold where they formerly had none. And that was enough because they didn’t immigrate for themselves and their own happiness but for the better chance of survival for their children.
As usual, Charlotte, you have put your finger on the complexity and nuance in the analogy of immigration as change.
Change is always about choice. You can’t make someone else change. It only breeds resentment or rebellion.
The expat family example is quite poignant for me. I went to business school in the UK. I would have stayed, but my then wife wanted to come home. We came home and I’m glad we did, but it was a turbulent decision.
And, of course, superficial external change, when one is deeply unhappy with, but unprepared to change, oneself is not a solution. “Wherever you go you take yourself and wherever you go – there you are.”
Change, from learning new software, to learning a new language and culture always involves changing oneself. Sometimes that is easy; sometimes not-so-much.
The stories we Ammericans tell about the immigrant turned successful entrepreneur with a better life for the whole family ignore those who come for the wrong reason, or are mistreated ormiss the way of life and go home, sadder, but wiser. That’s probably true ofsome in mergers, or strategic reinvention as well. Not all change is good change, just like not all help is good help.
Thanks for your contribution, and earnest engagement.
The thought that preoccupies me when reading your piece, Alan, is to which degree all people landing on these shores have been traumatized before they decided to relocate. We know that war refugees have had horrendous odds against them if they stayed. Slaves, political refugees, those whose children died of malnourishment or cold or the combination…
Do hurt people hurt people? Is that why we keep being troubled souls?
Thanks so much, Brother Ali,
Change courage, means acting on dissatisfaction and vision.
Thanks for your continued support.
Alan
A lovely and lively take on change, Alan.
I liked the approach you developed to explain the stages (acts) of change
Rejection of the current state- to change to something that is pulling- and having the mindset to chage.
The mindset you explained its need for change entails footing in the zone if unknown unknowns- Resilience and social support coupled with persistence are all required to make the future dream become reality.