Maddie and Jeff have written some very thought-provoking posts in the last week or so that have been framed as revolution vs. incremental. The posts are really good, and I do recommend reading each one. Here they are in order:

• Jeff started with a post about strategic imagination.
• Maddie then disagreed with some of the points (though agreed on many), arguing that you will lose a lot of association execs of you talk about revolution.
• (In there, I wrote a post suggesting associations choose between change and mediocrity, but I suggested the change needn’t be a revolution and linked to Maddie’s post).
• So Jeff responded with this post, saying the revolution is definitely at hand
• Maddie, loving a challenge, responded here, saying that we agree there is a revolution, but we disagree on how to engage associations in participating.
• Jeff responded (also to Ben’s comment) with a post about association growth, that is tied into the revolution discussion.

That’s a lot! More than I can respond to in a single post, in fact, but for now I want to make one point about how people experience change.

I think a point that Maddie was getting at that didn’t get picked up in the other conversations is that different people will experience the same change differently. The change may be revolutionary, but some people may not feel like it is a revolution. And if they don’t feel like it’s one, it is kind of pointless to argue with them that it IS one. The goal is not to be right about the existence of a revolution. The goal is to help people successfully navigate the change. At least that’s my goal when I am consulting, frequently. And when I am helping people to change, I try to view it from THEIR perspective.

For instance, I have changed a lot over the years. I’m not the same person I was twenty years ago, or even five years ago, or even one year ago. But over the last twenty years, every day has simply been the present for me. I dealt with things in the moment. The change—the revolution—is only apparent when I look back and reflect.

Now sometimes, because I’m smart and am aware of my environment, I would ratchet up my change. There have been times where I have done some major rebuilding and reinvention in my life, where I made more radical changes in response to what was happening. But even so, it didn’t always feel like a revolution to me at the time—it just felt like something I needed to do.

Helping people through change requires meeting them where they are. You can still push them once you’re there, and when things are changing rapidly and radically, they will NEED YOU to really push them. But in order to push them, you need to be close to them—right next to them, in fact. That means seeing the world as they see it and, if they give you permission, partnering with them in the change. Remember: it’s their change, not yours.