Changes... to what, to whom?

I had a discussion with an old friend last evening, the kind of dicussion you should have over a pint or two. The subject was change and the question what; what do we try to change, behaviour or personality? (It might be obvious, if for no other reason then because trying to change peoples personality is morally wrong. Who are we to deem what is the right one.) According to my friend (and many others) personality do not change after the age of ten. I certainly remember some of my reactions from kindergarden which would be the same today. Thus, we change behaviour and by logic follows, that if behaviour can change, then we can succeed no matter who is involved. This also means that a person hiring do not need to hire the best, but rather make sure that the organisation promotes the type of behaviour we want and that the people inside lead by example.  

Another thing we discussed was if it was worth striving for building the best team, or if we should simply accept that we have what we have and try to create the best working conditions by improving processes and tools. Talking to a collegue today he put me straight. We never strive for building the best team or creating the best process. Instead, we take small steps, always improving to create a better team or process, because there is always room for improvement (and so for more consultancy ;)

Look on the bright side

Since I wrote the post on appreciations I have had something tumbling around in my head, couldn't figure it out until I had a coaching session with a Product Owner the other day. We talked about the problems he saw in their organization and I pointed out to him that they had a lot of great things going for them and maybe it would be a good idea to use those to get even better.

So what I just realized is that if it is more efficient to give feedback about good stuff then bad stuff, maybe the same works for organisational problems? What if we, as consultants, tried to find the things that really work at our clients instead of focusing on what's really not working. If we could point out the good stuff and strengthen them instead of trying to get rid of the negative stuff I think we could generate a positive momentum and maybe even make change easier - now all I have to do is to figure out how to do just that.