You don’t need to be a genius to change your world

‘Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you from A to anywhere’. Not a quote from Walt Disney, but from a winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, Albert Einstein. He used his imagination to question and interpret the scientific logic of the day, developing theories that have stood the test of time (and space).

Any process, from car assembly to cooking recipe, is based on the logic of A to B. But when we are faced with a process that will change our environment, we naturally apply our skills and experience to think about how it will affect us personally.

Asking us to change goes way beyond logic, because change isn’t simply a process, it’s a form of intelligence. Just as we all have intelligence in e.g. maths or music or sport, we also have a level of change intelligence; the ability to understand how we think, feel, and act in response to change.

To survive in today’s world, we have no choice but to be better at whatever it is we do. And that means we have to be better at change itself. Whatever our level of change intelligence, it can be nurtured and improved in the same way that even the most talented in their respective fields take coaching and practice.

Einstein also said that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Half of change management projects fail, a statistic that is repeated year after year in survey after survey. That’s hardly an intelligent use of people’s time.

The higher our change intelligence, the more likely it is we will embrace the chance to go from A to anywhere.