The nature of change has many forms. Some changes are self-generated and highly personal, under our own control and willful effort, or dependent upon encounters with significant others-family, friends, colleagues, and life partners. Others are initiated by an organization or imposed upon us. Some changes occur as a result of circumstance or fate, a proverbial “date with destiny.” Change may be small scale, affecting individuals or teams, or it may be large scale, in turn, affecting an organization in its entirety.
This is why coaching for the individual, team and organizational level is vital. Our experiences are externally or internally focused; they either follow a linear pattern, regulated by chronological time, space, and the social structure, or transcend ordinary time and emerge from the depths of our psyches and our own internal strivings. They may be subtle and gradual, easy and welcomed, or difficult and demanding. We may meet change with acceptance and grace, or with protest and resistance.
The personal significance of each change occurs when we decide to make change. This means we move from the passive state of just watching how things unfold to taking some action that enables us to utilize the change to create an outcome of our own choice. Shifting our focus from what happens (the events themselves) to what we do with what happens is another way to describe transition. Ultimately, the way we make change is our personal choice and responsibility.
In its essence, coaching for change means managing the change dynamics by helping people overcome and let go of the past in order to move toward a powerful new future. While change may interrupt the usual flow of our daily lives and disrupt our normal functioning, it also affords us the opportunity, and the challenge, to examine our lives and to alter its course, if we so choose. Or to stay the course, making better choices and decisions in the life we’re already living.