14 frogs sat on a log…

January 18th, 2018

So, if 14 frogs are sitting on a log and 3 decide to jump off, how many are left?

This brain teaser is brought to you by Robert Kegan, an American developmental psychologist and author. He was a Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His book, Immunity To Change, seemed like a perfect topic for this particular moment in time.

January 16th – the halfway point between New Year’s Day (the perfect time for resolutions) and Groundhog Day (the perfect time for reflection on why our resolutions aren’t working). Groundhog Day is also one of my all-time favorite movies. While the movie is centered on Bill Murray’s apparent immunity to change, he does spend almost all of his screen time trying to change. There’s a sequence of scenes where he tries over and over and over again to win the heart of Andi MacDowell, with no success. Kind of the opposite of Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity, yet Murray is quite literally going kind of crazy. Sound like anyone you know?

Until…

He stops trying and spends his day just being.

As Kegan or Murray will tell you, change is tough. Real change is really tough.

That’s where a coach – Leadership Coach, Executive Coach, Peer Coach – can help us distinguish between the trying and the being. A Coach can offer the honest feedback, tools and resources to help navigate the breakthrough often needed to get to wherever it is you need to be.

If you’re a Do It Yourself (DIY) kind of person you might consider a DIY/Peer Coaching approach. Transform your partner/spouse/boy-girl friend/best friend into a Peer Coaching relationship, since they know you better than almost anyone else. You can take a look at one of our Resources pages (halfway down under “Coaching”) for the templates and tools to get your DIY/Coaching project off the ground.

If you think trained professional help is how you’d like to proceed,  let’s talk about how one of Cole Consulting’s Executive or Leadership Coaches can be of assistance. Let’s talk. I’ll share a little about how our different associates cover a broad range of experience, training and approaches, and all of whom are great connectors and gentle-yet-candid truth tellers.

Okay… back to the frogs.

If you guessed 11 left on the log, you are in good company, as most come up with that number. But that’s not the answer. Fourteen are left. Just because 3 decided to jump doesn’t mean that they, in fact, jumped.

Like Kegan says in his book, we’re mostly immune to change. Because change is tough.

Thanks for listening!

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