AUTHOR: Malene Marie Bendixen Jacobsen, Agile Coach

Even though Debra Searle’s talk was the best at the gathering, there were also a lot of other amazing talks.

Your Brain on Change, The Neurology of Leading Change – Laura Powers

Laura gave a very interesting talk around how our brain works with change. She presented us the 5 types of changes: Strategic, Structural, Process, Talent, and Cultural:

…And the neurological impact on our brain the changes have:

The one thing that really stood out for me from the talk was the Change Journey Model and the reminder about how we are constantly surrounded by changes that we sometimes forget is not just change at work that impacts us, but there are 100’s of different changes we go through:

The Change Journey Model is a good tool to get a visual picture of all the changes a person goes through and the impact of it.

The Change Journey Model divides the changes into 4 different levels: Long Intense Climb, Quick Hike up a Steep Hill, Long Steady Trek and The Pebble on the Trail.

The idea is to take the list of the changes in your life both private and work-related, determine what kind of changes it is and then plot them all into one diagram like below:

Suddenly you have a clear visual overview of your changes and you can start to see where you capacity lies.

Imagine if you have a picture like this from all your team members. You will be able to easily see why some are struggling, or whether they are ready for the next change, where it will fit in, and so on, in my mind, there are a lot of opportunities with this little tool.

Let me know if you try it out and how it works for you.

See the next blog post for more favorite takeaways from the gathering.