Hi Ben, nice to see you again. I read your link (had actually read it previously) and it actually supports my disagreement that “People Management is the key to managing change.”

In your article you say that it was when you changed from a top-down/command & control style to a listening/respect style that you truly unleashed your team’s full potential.

It seems to me that the TRUE change was in YOUR MAP. It was your mindset, attitude and philosophy that had to change BEFORE your people management approach changed.

All the leadership and management training in existence won’t help a person do things differently unless that person is willing to modify/change his/her MAP.

My compliments, Ben, on being willing to change! Too often, managers try to implement best practices and the solution du jour without any consideration if their MAP is compatible. Often it isn’t and the results are phony—and their people know it!

Ben, I respectfully disagree. There are NO influencers that can bring about change unless the individual desires to change. AA says that you can’t stop a person from drinking unless he wants to stop, the individual must first want to change and I believe that that is an INTERNAL decision, a personal choice, as is stopping drinking.

The greatest danger I see from people who do change is their assumption that the influences that worked for them will work for others.

This is especially true of belief systems, religion, organizations, etc. What works for one may not work for another.

I think that the important thing is to find the method/approach/influence that works for you and then help others find what works for them without the assumptions.

One more thing, IMHO, every human being on the planet is a work-in-progress. If the progress stops one is either bored to death or dead.

Ben, Just to clarify my take on MAP. MAP is in each individual’s head and the choice to change it rests within each of us.

Outside forces may influence us and act as examples, but the choices and control belong solely to each of us individually. You say your dad taught you, but the choice to learn was your own.

As humans age past babyhood it gets more and more difficult to ‘teach’ them anything—one can only present information in a way that encourages them to choose to learn.

I think that when we are seduced by ideology, give up choice and hand over control of our MAP that we betray ourselves and our future.

This thread begins very logically with the statement “People Management is the key to managing change.” but then loses something, possibly in pursuit of vested interest.

It may be of value to revisit Bens opening statement and realise that it is that way that we attempt to manage people that makes them resist the change we are trying to make.
People are extremely complex and one individual does not have the ability to manage the complexity of another.
Thus in the opening statement it is not “People Management” in the conventinal sense, that is key but the way that we manage people.

In the past there was no choice, to manage people meant telling them what to do.
Now we are beginning to understnd how destructive that directive form of management is.

The option as Ben says is “leading people to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with great respect.”

When this happens change becomes organic and constant as each individual appreciates their own value and seeks to use that value to the benefit of their organisation.

We no longer seek to drive our vision of what we believe change should be, instead we seek to create the environment in which individuals flourish and their change becomes routine.

Peter A Hunter.