August 2018 - The Change Gym

Managing Change, Change Fitness, and Power

2020-05-09T07:09:05+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Change Fitness, Managing Change|

Much of the language around change management has to do with power. In this article I want to challenge you to rethink the nature of this power and to consider the role of change fitness. Power over change What words do we often hear when people talk of managing change? How about these: influence, leverage, reengineer, redirect, mandate, restructure, convince, get onboard, enlist, persuade, manage, reorganise. What kind of power do these words suggest to you? I suggest [...]

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The Change Quadrant™

2021-10-24T11:13:07+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Change Fitness, Coaching|

The idea of change fitness didn’t just come out of nowhere. It has been shaped by the ideas of great thought leaders, including Lewin, Sternberg, McAdams, Maruna, Koltko-Rivera, Prochaska & DiClemente, Seligman, Gergan, Bruner, Frankl, Kegan, and many others. In this article, I want to focus on one of these thinkers and show you how his work contributes to the change fitness concept. Kurt Lewin Kurt Lewin is very well known by people in the organisational change space. [...]

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Why Coaching Fails

2021-10-24T11:11:21+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Coaching|

I have been coaching for over 16 years and I wish I could say that all my clients made fantastic progress. Some did, but others were disappointed with the coaching outcomes and some achieved what they always expected – not much. The dilemma Over this time, I have pondered why some people achieve great results and others don’t. What is it that mediates the outcome a client achieves? Is it the immediate context? Could it be the broader [...]

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Should I Become a Coach?

2019-02-22T12:54:28+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Coaching|

Coaching as a Career Choice As the title suggests, this article is written for people who are considering moving into coaching as a career. Many others have already made that transition – some successfully and some not. It will likely involve training, time, and costs, so how can you tell whether it’s the right move for you? You may already have done some coaching in the workplace or been coached by someone. I don’t know your situation, so [...]

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On ICF Accreditation

2019-02-22T13:02:36+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Coaching|

What are accredited programs? Our flagship program, the Personal Change Fitness Program (PCFP), is accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF). That may mean something to some of our readers, but in this article, I want to explain what it means to those who don’t know. First, some background. Coaching, as an industry, has been around for 25 years or so. There are a host of training organisations, including universities, that teach people how to become a coach. [...]

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Personal Change Fitness Program

2022-01-13T16:12:59+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Programs|

What’s the Background? The PCFP was developed in 2015 by The Change Gym’s founders, Steve and Stephanie Barlow. To be agile and ready to succeed at change, people need strengths in 7 key psychological resources. We call these 7 resources ‘change fitness’. The more change fitness you have, the more likely you are to be successful at change. What Happens? When someone enrols in the PCFP, they begin by taking an IRVEY assessment [...]

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Beyond the Me Project

2019-02-26T10:50:43+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Uncategorized|

The mystery of things I recently purchased a book about famed Australian artist, Margaret Olley. In that book I read these words, penned by Lou Klepac; “if we stopped judging objects by their practical usefulness, we might discover the mystery of things and not be restricted by the logical, practical world in which we strive to survive physically.” Those words arrested me and invited me to reflect. What does he mean by ‘practical usefulness’ and the ‘mystery of [...]

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THE CHANGE GYM – WHAT’S OUR STORY?

2019-02-24T11:40:05+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: The Change Gym|

The Change Gym began under a different name in February 2010. If you’re interested to hear our story thus far, here it is. Let’s go back before 2010. In the first decade of the 21st century, Steve and Stephanie Barlow (the founders) worked in government jobs. Stephanie worked mainly with unemployed people, helping them with job readiness and job education programs. Steve worked in a correctional centre running anger management programs for maximum security inmates. It is often [...]

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Change Readiness Assessment

2019-08-18T10:08:24+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Change Readiness|

What Does Our Change Readiness Assessment Check? The Change Gym provides comprehensive change readiness assessments for organisational change. We check 3 key areas of an organisation's change readiness. These are the: Stakeholder engagement in the change initiative - whether they are 'on board'. This is a key metric. We have developed an online change readiness assessment based on the research of Armenakis, who has spent over 40 years studying organisational change readiness. Readiness of your change management team [...]

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What’s Next?

2021-10-24T11:11:28+10:00By Steve Barlow|Categories: Uncategorized|

We need to be willing to change. Change is the essence of life. Those words aren’t mine: they come from American psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Livingston. After listening to people telling him their woes, and his favourite therapeutic question was, “What’s next?” Good question. What's next? I listened have to many painful stories hen I delivered anger management programs in the NSW prison system. But we all have our stories to tell. Everyone has been let down by someone, [...]

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