“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw
I watched Elton John talk recently about going back to vinyl, and how he is now ironically buying back records after having sold his whole collection years ago. The move away from vinyl at the time had created a lot of controversy and questions for those in the music world, and controversy and questions are continually being faced by many business leaders today who are dealing with change in various degrees.
The word ‘change’ is certainly a loaded one. Loaded in terms of the different reactions and emotions that it can trigger. When we hear a word, we automatically create a unique internal representation around what it means to us. Around the word ‘change,’ these could be pictures as extreme as having to put the family home up for sale.
The more care you take therefore to choose the best word for the situation you’re describing, the kinder it is to the spontaneous creation that takes place in the listeners’ minds.
If you find you use the word ‘change’ regularly, just check in on what exactly are you meaning. Could you replace it with a different word such as evolve, develop, improve, tweak, revamp or refine for example? All of these will produce different internal representations in someone’s mind.
To help break a linguistic habit or pattern, such as over-using the word change, be more specific about what you mean by replacing the word change in your own mind with others such as, for example, the word ‘life’.
Change happens as much as life happens. We don’t always know where change is going to take us. Or life for that matter. But like vinyl, we can often go full circle.
(Image credit: bavotasan)