BridgeLite Blog

Walls
May 7, 2010

Four walls (room) – to protect what’s in and keep out – well, what’s out.

Break Through!

Break Through!

Wailing Wall – a place to seek, mourn, and pray.

Great wall of China – way to define large borders.

THE WALL – of Fenway Park – a place to target when batting it up with the

Boston Red Soxs

We are good at walls. We are even better using terms involving walls for organizational analogies: Building walls, scaling walls, climbing walls.

“Tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev.” -Ronald Reagan

For change-leaders creating momentum, reinventing, moving people to new places – challenging and frustrating moments encountered can be when you……..

HIT THE WALL!

When something  smacks you to a dead stop. An obstacle seems insurmountable. Difficult.  Walking away seems better than moving forward.

What is a Change leader to do?

1. Acknowledge.

The wall is a temporary derailment. Hitting a wall doesn’t change anything.  The original challenge is still in play, has to be dealt with, and you are still the one to make it happen.

In order to tame it, you have to name it. It’s just a wall.

2. Personal Choice Moment

You have to decide it you’d prefer to:

A. Jump over it

B. Climb it

C. Walk around it

All methods work. After all, while potentially large, it’s just a wall.

3. Setbacks ≠ Stop

Setbacks or new obstacles don’t indicate that the original change is no longer needed. Newly discovered impediments are just incremental obstacles that were not originally uncovered in the analysis. Once removed, better for all in the long term. Include the setback into the plan and keep moving forward. If a personal setback, what did you learn, how can you use it as growth experience?

Don’t give up – keep going!!

Good Luck!