FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
May 30, 2006
Leading Ideas: Don't Stop...Start
"Nature abhors a vacuum" -- François Rabelais (1494?-1553), French Renaissance satirist, from his book Gargantua and Pantagruel
Consider This:
If you want to change something in your life, it's common to try to stop the behaviors you don't like. While this certainly seems logical, it seldom works. The reason is simple - it unintentionally creates a vacuum where the old behaviors used to be. And since nature hates a vacuum it will fill it with anything it can find - usually the very behaviors you're trying to stop since they're so familiar. Instead of stopping certain behaviors, try focusing on what you want to create - and the new behaviors you need to get there. Eventually, with practice, new behaviors will develop enough muscle to naturally replace the old ones.
One place this idea can be important is in changing one's management style. Often I have clients who are abrasive with staff members and want to change how they interact. One in particular admitted that he really hated his own behavior. He then asked for my advice on how to stop it. I said, "Before we try to stop your current behavior, let me ask you one question - what do you want to start doing instead?" He looked at me blankly and said, "I'm not really sure." "That's the problem," I said, "Let's start there."
Try This:
1. Notice any place in your life where you say you've got to stop doing something.
2. Shift your mind to think about what you need to start doing in that area.
3. Be specific. Write down the exact things you want to do.
4. Don't admonish yourself for doing the old behaviors, rather stay focused on starting the new ones and the old ones will diminish on their own.
Posted by Doug Sundheim at May 30, 2006 10:30 AM | Category: leadership |
3 Comments
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Austin Osman Spare said it another way "Be careful what you cast out - the vacancy is quickly filled." Which is why successful practioners of magick (change in conformity with will)study the Quabalah and the Tree of Life, for their rich 'associative' data, which fill up their minds with concordant images and scents and colors that subliminaly remind them of what they want to accomplish. Crowley's classic MAGICK: THEORY AND PRACTICE might produce more than a fair share of insights into the matter - whatever it is. And remember the words of Tertullian 'When a thing is hidden away with such great pains, merely to reveal it is to destroy it.'
somebody has too much time on their hands.
And here I thought you were plumbing the philosophic depths of the meaning of life and a meaningful existence, and then you go an mention theories of management :-) **
Anyway, an enjoyable post and definitely some words of wisdom.
BTW, these days I am reading "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer. I find it fascinating and surprising that Speer has already told all the stories that need to be told about "modern" management.
Will definitely have to switch tracks on the next book....
** See article on business mangement theory in one of the latest editions of "The Atlantic". I was recently on a flight from Amsterdam to the U.S. and sat next to an Ivy League grad who was about to start a (no doubt high paying) job with PWC in NY. I showed him the article which basically shreads all management theory. It kept getting passed around the plane and several came back to say they had a new world view of management after reading the article. Needless to say, it is recommended reading.