Insecurity => creativity LO10824

Michael Erickson (sysengr@atc.boeing.com)
Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:10:29 -0800 (PST)

Replying to LO10784 --

Hello Sherri,

On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Sherri Malouf wrote:
> Joan stated:
> >Change is something which little children love until they learn from their
> >parents and society that they should be feeling bad.
>
> Joan -- I am interested in this comment. My son is two years old and has
> had to adapt to a lot of changes. Many times it is not ok -- he prefers
> predictability. For example, the transition to daycare....
***SNIP***
> It is a sudden change in his life which he does not like. I remember
> my first trip -- when I came home he was very happy to see me. The he
> all of a sudden remembered that I had left him and he chewed me out for
> 30 minutes! Ever been chewed out by an 8 month old?

Boy have I been chewed out by an 8 month old. He is now 2 years 2 months
old, and he still chews me out from time to time. I agree with you about
humans resisting change. We are approaching the time of toilet training,
and my son doesn't want anything to do with it just now. He is curious,
and I think he gets the concept, but deep inside he knows that once he
crosses that line he won't be a baby anymore and he's not sure he wants
that change just yet.

We've tried hard to give him a secure world. My wife and I catch a
certain amount of criticism because we don't "control him" or inflict
discipline that I'm told he must have or he will "take over".

What we find instead is that when we let him make changes at his pace, he
makes them faster. We introduce ideas, answer his questions, try to be
good examples, keep him from killing himself (which is about every 5
minutes) make living and learning as much fun as possible (and it really
is possible to have a LOT of fun doing this) and amazingly enough, he
develops further than we expect. His learning does kind of "take over"
in our house, but I think that it's ok. If he sees that we feel it's that
important, then he takes learning seriously too. One of our key lessons
for him is that it's OK to love ones self and feel good about ones self.
How can you care for others if you can't care about yourself?

He counted to 40 a couple of days ago. He knows the entire alphabet, and
we have a standing joke between him and I where he will point to an animal
(real or in a picture) and I'll tell him it's a chicken, and he will laugh
and tell me what it really is (and he really does know the correct names
of around 300 animals including chickens). Lately he's turned the tables
and started telling me that the animals we see are all walruses (he likes
walruses) then he laughs hysterically.

My point is, that we so often try to PUSH our changes, and don't allow
people time to digest them. We want change on our terms and in our time
sequence and schedule, not realizing that if we give people time to truly
comprehend a new thing and make it theirs, then they will implement it in
such a way that the changes stay a long time. While this is especially
true with the teaching of children, where they are often bullied into
conformance by parents and teachers (no wonder it's called "training"
rather than "teaching") we also do it to in organizations.

This might seem slow at first, and our urgency to get on with it rings in
our heads, but what we don't usually get is that there is a kind of
momentum that builds up after a while. My son knows a lot more than a lot
of other kids his age, (he's an only kid at the moment so he's still a
little behind socially-but we're working on that too-everybodies gotta
have friends, especially little people) but where he has opportunity, he
grows. We plant the seed, water it a little and HE does the growing. We
don't have to force or push anything. (Doesn't Senge talk a lot about the
intrinsic motivation in chilren)?

The key idea for me is - helping people make the new way "theirs". This
is more than just getting conformance or having them "buy into" it. This
is OWNERSHIP! But when you help people get ownership, you better prepare
to get out of the way fast because they will run with the new idea in
directions you won't be able to plan for. It's to the good, but it's not
controllable (so you control phreaks out there are going to have a tough
time).

Joans comment about little children loving change until they learn from
their parents that they should be feeling bad reflects the sort of changes
that parents and society force. Of course it feels bad, It's forced.
When you get beat up a few times over changes, then of course you begin to
fear and resist them. It even get's installed in our un-concious memories
and effects our behaviour in some of the most bizarre ways, (so we grow up
thinking we are all crazy).

I use enthusiasm, cartoons and experimentation to help my co-workers
change. It requires a long view, patience and a personal commitment to
changing myself. When co-workers see me change and grow, they consider
the possibility for themselves. When we team up to tackle a difficult
problem, they try some of their ideas and a few of mine. When things
work, they develop confidence that their ideas have valitity, and so are
other peoples ideas. Change becomes a possible and positive thing in
their minds. Slowly the momentum grows.....

Aren't we all just children grown tall?

later...
Michael Erickson
sysengr@atc.boeing.com

-- 

Michael Erickson <sysengr@atc.boeing.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>