Changing Business Culture: Doing the Heavy Lifting
Last Friday I dead-lifted 260 pounds. In other words, I picked up a 45-pound bar with 107.5 pounds attached to each end and stood it straight up. It was heavy. It was also one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done in my life.
In two years I have come from couch potato to power-lifter. Why? Because I decided that I wanted to move more – more specifically, I wanted to never miss a plane because I was too winded to run the length of an airport terminal in 10 minutes or less to catch a connecting flight. And because I met someone who saw something in me that I could never have seen on my own. The trainer I began working with at the gym said, “I think you have something here; let’s see what you can do.” She then took me on a journey where I discovered amazing things about power-lifting, strength, and -- most of all – myself. I am a different person; transformed by weights.
Yes, I have changed physically, but the most powerful experience associated with yanking that weight up off the floor has been emotional, even spiritual. Who knew that after years of trying to lose weight, the thing that would fulfill me most would be picking weight up? Now, weightlifting is the metaphor for my life; it illustrates the change that I want to inspire and support when working with clients, when helping them to change daily behaviors to create a new set of possibilities for their companies and everyone else committed to their cause.
I have come to realize that the same four things that are imperative to a “good lift” are what’s needed in companies where people want to change behavior, to re-invigorate culture and values:
Passion. We need to want it. We need to make an emotional connection to the vision of what we are attempting to achieve. This is where we get the energy for commitment and discipline – the strength of will to muscle through the hard work. The vision becomes personal once we commit to making things happen.
Momentum. For me, the first 4” of the dead-lift is the hardest – the bigger it is, the harder it is to get it moving. The next hardest part of a lift is maintaining the proper form, keeping things in check while breaking through the inertia and driving the weight upward. If I move through the first 4” too quickly, I set myself up for failure. The trick is to drive with enough power to get the weight moving, but not so much that I lose control.
I am reminded of this when working with clients – so much work goes into the preparing, planning, consensus building, strategizing, and implementing. All of this work is very necessary and is also the hardest work – that first increment of change, ending the inertia and challenging the status quo. These first stages of change require the most discipline and become the foundation for success.
Support. Support in any form that pushes us on, that helps us to be better than we are and helps us to stay on track is invaluable. The simple fact that we are not all alone provides an incredible amount of strength for the soul. Whether it comes as cheering, feedback, correction, empathy – all of it reminds us that we matter and that we have the chance to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others.
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