Putting theory into practice

Oh!

 

Some people call it a lightbulb moment.

Or the jigsaw piece falling into place.

The click as something comes together in your mind.

 

A group of us have been listening to someone talk through models describing different organisational cultures. I recognise and understand several described. They are familiar.

But the ‘Oh!’ is not that. It comes a little later when I’m ruminating on others aspects we’ve covered in this course, personality traits, learning preferences, change curves, relationship dynamics and leadership models.

The ‘Oh!’ comes from suddenly piecing together different bits which relate to me personally and seeing the picture they make.

 

It’s been an interesting course. I’ve learnt a number a concepts, frameworks and models and now I’m buzzing with my new-found knowledge.

 

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Several weeks later I’m feeling tired and frustrated.

I only realise that buzz of excitement from the course has evaporated because someone I hadn’t seen in a while asks me how it went.

All the good intention I had to do something with that learning disintegrated shortly after I opened my inbox the following day.

 

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I’m on another course. This one is short and to the point. It’s task orientated and I leave with specific actions to implement.

I get back to the office and make some changes immediately.

This time with concrete actions, I feel I’ll change my ways.

 

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A month or so later, someone asks me if it’s worth attending the course. I’m about to say yes, when I stop and pause.

A couple of the actions I committed to have stuck, but not all.

Perhaps that was natural selection, and the ones that stuck were the ones I felt gave me instant results.

But has anything substantial really changed?

 

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I feel disorientated and overwhelmed.

I’m in the middle of a situation I don’t know how to handle.

What I’ve done so far doesn’t feel quite right, we’re looping around in ever decreasing circles, so I’m wondering how I can do it differently.

And it has to be now. Before things go down a route of no return.

 

I seek help.

And it becomes clear that if I change how I react, it’ll change how things go.

But I’ll have to be hypervigilant, recognise my reaction is coming before it does and do something different instead.

 

Oh!

How do I do that?

I examine what is going on for me in that situation, in depth.

I begin to see some of the triggers that build into something bigger, and then what happens when one too many is flicked.

I think carefully about how I can minimise the possibility of having those triggers flicked.

And what I do when they are.

 

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It’s been a bad night. I’ve not slept. Round and round and round, thoughts of speaking with this person and what I’m going to do to handle it differently.

We have a meeting set up, which makes it easier. Means I’m prepared, not suddenly taken unawares.

 

‘Remember what to do…’

 

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Meeting over.

I kept vigilant.

I managed to avoid going down the same path I have done before.

It took a lot of effort.

There was a difference, but will it stick?

I trust in continuing to keep on trying to do things differently.

 

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It’s performance review time, and it’s made me stop and think back over the year.

I realise that I got a real buzz from learning new models, frameworks, concepts, but the reality of stepping back into the workplace was that I applied very little.

And when necessity made me evaluate and decide to change my behaviour it was a huge amount of effort and conscious decision making on my part to do so.

It took effort. Not just a few times, but repetitively over months until I wasn’t thinking quite so consciously about it.

And with that, the situation I was in become more positive.

 

So it was my new found knowledge that helped raise my awareness, but a critical situation that made me decide to do things differently.

 

I realise that whilst I enjoy and get inspiration hearing and understanding new theories, it’s what I put into practice that makes the difference. The actions that take effort, are often the ones that result in the biggest changes, and so sometimes too much information means I don’t do anything with it, it’s simply too much effort.

Now I use learning to raise my awareness, and then I look to focus on one thing - one bit, however small, that I will work on that I think will make a difference for me and then I practice and practice and practice.