When thinking about this month’s blog post, I took some time to look over the posts of the last few months. Two themes that run through many of them are change and transformation.

Whenever we talk about improving ourselves as individuals and/or leaders, about building a more purposeful team or about using our organisations to support and sustain the planet, the need for change isn’t far away.

Most of us acknowledge that change is an essential part of life. Without change, we cannot grow, either as individuals, leaders, teams, organisations or even nations. Becoming a better person, increasing our level of emotional health or improving our physical health – each of these involve change at some level.

However, we also know that attempts to change don’t always ‘stick’.

With that in mind, this month I want to introduce one of the powerful concepts covered in our Mastering Emotional Health app, the QuantumThink® Distinction ‘Transformation as distinct from change’.

So often when we look at change, we do so in terms of ‘fixing’ problems in our current context, that is, within the current environment. We generally ask ‘what’s wrong’ then try to make things ‘right’, one problem at a time. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that as one problem is addressed, another shows its head. Life becomes a never-ending game of ‘Whac-a-Mole’ while the underlying environment remains the same.

Transformation, on the other hand, is not about asking what is wrong but instead asking ‘What are the opportunities?’ Rather than just solving today’s problems, transformation is about looking forward and asking, for instance, ‘How do I want to be as a leader?’ or ‘How do we want to be as a team?’

Transformation is fundamentally forward looking. It is the ability to generate a new context, built on intent, as distinct from tinkering around the edges of the current context.

In the Mastering Emotional Health app, creators Susie Gregory and Bente Boe share one of Dianne Collins’s examples. Suppose you have an image of yourself as an ‘angry person’ and you want to change that. You might choose to try and work on that anger in various ways, trying to remove the behaviour.

However, if that is all you do you are still not removing that image of yourself as an angry person. Instead, you continue to see yourself an ‘angry person’, albeit one who now controls their anger. More than likely, as you grapple to maintain your new habits, this mindset holds you back and the ‘angry you’ will eventually resurface.

In contrast, transformation in this situation would be to look forward and see the person you want to be, a person who is not fundamentally angry. You would start to recognise and understand your angry reactions as a ‘least-action pathway’ of your personality. They are automatic responses, not some inherent aspect of who you are.

Changing the context in this way allows you to notice and acknowledge your anger while not owning it. As your emotional health grows, you will increasingly be able to choose above-the-line responses to replace this anger.

Another example, on a global scale this time, is the world’s response to climate change. So often our response is seen as the need to eliminate fossil fuels (a very problematic aspect of our current world). This context immediately makes the challenge look insurmountable. How, for instance, will we ever remove all those petrol or diesel driven vehicles from our roads?

This is what Dianne calls an ‘old’ or ‘classical’ world view. A new world view, in contrast, would be to imagine what we can create as distinct from what we need to fix. This transformational view would see a future in an entirely different context. We would see a world powered by energy sources that are free and everlasting. A world in which air and water are clean and the sky clear. With that vision, we would direct all our shared energy towards creating that world.

Making the shift towards transformation as distinct from change is simpler than you might think. It starts with approaching the ‘problems’ in your world not via the question ‘What is the challenge we are facing?’ We ask instead, ‘What are the opportunities we see?’ or ‘How can we have this work for everyone?’ We call this ‘being in the right question’. There are many, many ‘right’ questions, not just these two, all of which share the characteristic of being forward looking, of imagining a new context. Give it a try.

Gayle

Mastering Emotional Health: 21 ways to enhance your wellbeing is a journey consisting of 21 ways to master your emotional health and enhance your wellbeing. Each session includes an introduction and illustration, plus a meditation and recreation. If you practise what you learn, will enhance your progress towards mastering your own emotional health. Visit the app for more information and insights.