FAQ

Here are some questions we are often asked. If your question isn’t here, please contact us and let us know what it is.

General Questions

Organisational change readiness is the readiness of a business or organisation to succeed at the change process.

It’s not simply readiness to begin – it’s readiness to succeed at every step of the change process.

Okay, so that’s the helicopter view. Now, let’s drill down and think about some details. Let’s think about 3 implications change readiness has for change management. Read More >>

Change fitness is the psychological fitness to succeed at the change process.

Whenever we try to change something, we engage in the change process. So change change can take many different forms, but underneath all these forms there is the same process.

Sometimes we find the change process easy, and sometimes we find it hard. But why does this happen? Read More >>

These 2 concepts are closely related but also different. Change fitness refers to a person’s psychological fitness to meet the demands of the change process. You can think of it like physical fitness. You need physical fitness to run a marathon, but having such fitness doesn’t mean you will be ready to run a marathon next week. You may not be convinced it is worth all the effort, or you may have other arrangements.

But, if you’re not fit to run the marathon you can’t be ready to win it. You might be ready to start, but you’re not ready to finish.

In organisations, things are a little more complex. Organisations consist of people, and each person has a degree of change fitness. When people come together in teams, they pool their change fitness resources, and these contribute to the organisation’s change readiness.

However, organisations consist of more than people. There are other aspects of organisational change readiness, like leadership practices, and communications, and culture.

Steve, what is a change fitness coach?

I have been asked this question many times, so I thought I would write down my answer. I will make my answer simple but bear in mind that behind this simple answer lies a depth of abstract concepts and academic research.

A change fitness coach is an experienced and highly skilled coach who has undertaken further training to help their clients develop change fitness. You probably understand all of that except for the change fitness bit. What is change fitness? Read More >>

Coaching Questions

No, our resources provide assessments and education. We provide information about the key areas pertaining to change fitness and suggest people examine their own life and story to see how they reflect strengths and weaknesses in these areas.  If people need therapeutic support, we recommend they source appropriately qualified people to help them.

Not at all. In fact, they add value to what a coach trained in these concepts can deliver. These resources are the beginning of a journey, not the end of one. They open the door a wide range of possible discussions the client and coach could engage in to further the client’s growth and performance.

That’s a decision for you and your clients to make. However, there is a good case for assessing the change fitness of all your clients. Doing the assessment would reveal areas of need, and your clients can decide for themselves whether they want to work on these needs or not. Often, people are not aware of what their needs are, so the assessment at least makes them aware of where they could improve.

No. They are about developing strengths. That can mean overcoming weaknesses and ‘fixing things’, but it also means becoming better where you’re already good. There is no such thing as enough change fitness. Everyone can benefit from more, and anyone can develop more.

Sometimes a person’s change fitness is affected by current events in their life. This can have negative effects, but a worse situation is when people have long-term weakness. These long-term weaknesses produce recurring patterns in their behaviours and experience. A typical behaviour for them may be that they begin things but never finish them. Or they may begin projects with great enthusiasm but get very discouraged when things go wrong. These patterns impede their performance and limit their success.

You work with them on multiple levels. Think of change fitness as a foundational concept. If you go to a swimming coach, he is not only interested in improving your stroke. He is also interested in building up your fitness. You need fitness to give you endurance. Technical knowledge, or even muscle memory, is of limited value if you’re not fit enough to win a race or save your life. You work on building change fitness at the same time as you are working on other areas. They are not really separate in the real world. Their ability to improve in leadership, management, mentoring, sales, marketing, or whatever, is linked to their capacity for change in how they think and how they function.

No. We want you to use these resources as much as you want and need to. There is a monthly subscription that allows coaches unlimited use of the resources. You use them whenever and as much as you choose.

These resources can help anyone. We focus mainly on leaders because weaknesses in their change fitness usually has a greater overall negative affect on the organisation than is the case for ordinary workers. However, everyone is important and everyone can be helped by these tools.

No. The best time to develop change fitness is when you’re not facing disruptive change. However, anytime is a good time to develop change fitness.

Yes. These are highly specialised products and you need to understand the theory behind them and how they work.