LEARN CHANGE GROW

November 28 , 2022 /

LEARN CHANGE GROW

For years, I used this mantra LEARN CHANGE GROW as a guide for innovative change as I believed it was a simple reminder of a process and a way of making progress both as individuals and as organizations.  The goal was evolving into a new and different way of being in the world, something familiar but now in a different form, more relevant and appealing.  Sometimes we started with revising and revisioning the mission, updating and changing it to be sure the mission was an accurate and timely reflection of who we are, whether as persons or as communities.  Other times, we projected who and where we thought we wanted to be in three to five years in the future and what it would take to get there.  Part of that process was using the time-tested and familiar SWOT analysis.  It is important to know what you have and what you don’t have when you want to design and launch something new. It is also good to see what obstacles and challenges might be encountered along the way.

 

The learn change grow mantra was especially helpful with regard to students, regardless what level.  If students or practitioners are going to grow and expand their knowledge and skills, they need to know what they need to learn in order to change and grow.  If they and we are to expand awareness and understanding and how our work will help solve problems and make things happen, we must have new tools and skills because we cannot use old methods to solve new problems.  It’s reminiscent of the biblical injunction: “No one puts new wine into old wineskins: otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins: but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins”. Thus we need new systems and structures for addressing today’s and tomorrow’s issues in any field, whether education, health care, climate change, poverty and disease or other environmental and social concerns.

 

One day recently I was looking at this Learn Change Grow heading, having been a professional change agent these many years, and suddenly the mantra shifted as I was looking at it to Learn Grow Change with change being the end product or goal.  Does it matter?   Can we have growth without change?  I don’t think so nor can we have real change without growth.  They belong together. It is not a matter of shifting things around so they appear different, the tweaking around the edges, but rather replacing the old version with a radically different and new design.  It may be similar to replacing horse and carriage with an automobile or replacing the combustion engine with an electric one.  We need a hydrogen fuel cell for moving individuals and institutions forward.

 

This takes me back to a tag line I used for a long time and it is still valid as I see it.  It is this:

“Change is inevitable.  Plan carefully.”  We have all heard it repeatedly in different ways and our experience tells us that we cannot and will not remain the same.  The question is to what extent can we design and manage the change that will benefit ourselves and others?  To do that we must learn how to do it in the best ways possible and deliverable.

 

LEARN GROW CHANGE     OR       LEARN CHANGE GROW     In either case, LEARN first.  And to do that we may need to UNLEARN or remove the old to prepare space for the new.

Comments (2)

  1. This is a wonderful, three-pronged mantra. Perhaps the three ‘prongs’ are to influence the body, mind and spirit? Yes. It is often difficult to isolate growth from change, for they often leap-frog each other in life… growth leads, change follows… change leads, growth happens. And then there’s transformation – where would that fit in? Learn, Grow, Transform… Hmm…?

    1. Like the three-legged stool, perhaps. It cannot stand if any one of the three is missing, a tripartite agreement. Is change, regardless of what kind, always transformation? When leaves and plants die and decay, they change their form. They break down, the nutrients and minerals that were locked in those plants are released back into the environment—into the earth, water, or air—and converted back into forms plants can use.

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