Change Is Everybody's Business

Patricia McLagan

Change Is Everybody's Business challenges readers to realize the power they have to make things happen-to support, stymie, or redirect change. Pat McLagan draws on her thirty years of experience consulting on change projects worldwide to outline the beliefs, character traits, and actions that will enable anyone to welcome change and take advantage of it rather than fear and resist it. Taking a conversational approach to a serious subject, she uses stories, examples, and illustrations to drive home the message that everybody in an organization has the power to make changes for the better. And she includes questionnaires throughout the book that enable readers to evaluate how ready they are to make the most of change. Change is happening all around us, both planned and unplanned. How we react to change determines personal success and self-esteem, and ultimately the success of the entire organization. Change Is Everybody's Business will show readers precisely what they need to know to become more conscious participants in determining their own destiny at work-and in life.

PAT McLAGAN

Change Is Everybody’s Business

Dedicated to my Mom and Dad, who lived through the turmoil and promise of the 20th century and almost saw its passing.

Bernice Moldenhauer (1919–1996)

Harry Moldenhauer (1904–1996)

THANKS for being transition people, for bringing me into this fascinating and changing world, and for encouraging me to make my mark in it!!

An important note from the author to you

HAVE YOU EVER eaten an energy bar? It helps you bring your own power and resources to the surface. Change Is EVERYBODY’s Business is meant to be an energy bar for you in working with change. I’m writing it because in over 30 years of consulting all over the world, I’ve seen few people fully access their change power. Instead, I’ve seen disillusionment, fear, blaming, “stuckness,” and dependency. I want it better for us.

I want both of us, all of us, to claim our change power – unleash it in ways that help us create a better personal and shared world. It’s something you and we CAN do. The question is, “WILL we?”

Whatever role you play at work or at home, you are a force in change. Mail clerk or CEO, salesperson or factory worker, leader or follower, wife or husband, old or young – you are an active participant in the changes around you. And you have choices in the roles you’ll play. You can choose how you think about what’s happening around you. And you can choose your actions. These choices are the heart of “empowerment.” And empowerment is a gift we give ourselves, not something that others bestow.

Change Is EVERYBODY’s Business is about personal empowerment – from the inside out. It focuses on personal power at work, but it is relevant to all areas of life. Chances are that by developing your change power at work, you will become more powerful wherever you go.

My role in this book is to remind you about what you already know but may not be fully acting on. It is to remind you that your actions or indifference help to create the world as we know it. That’s your external impact. Your thoughts also create the world as YOU know it – your inner world. This is a lot of power. I’d like to help you learn or ascertain how to access and use that power.

I hope you will find many interesting, provocative, and awakening messages in Change Is EVERYBODY �s Business to help you navigate the churning waters that change inevitably causes. That’s my mission. Let me know what happens for you.

В В В В Pat McLagan

В В В В patmclagan@mclaganinternational.co

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to several dear friends and colleagues who carefully read and helped me shape Change Is EVERYBODY �s Business:

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I’m grateful for your support and friendship!

Foreword

BY KENNETH BLANCHARD, PH.D

Co-Author, The One Minute ManagerВ®

Change is a topic we never seem to learn enough about. The phenomenal success of Who Moved My Cheese, whose Forewor