Dr. E introduces the ABCs of Change series and sets up that this final video will focus on the Cs. Viewers get quick context and know what to expect from the rest of the talk.
Defines capacity and outlines ways to expand personal and organizational resources, skills, knowledge, and motivation. This chapter helps viewers consider concrete areas to develop to better support change.
Explores challenge as a catalyst for change, urging intentional exposure to uncomfortable situations for development. Listeners are encouraged to structure visible challenges for themselves, their teams, and organizations so growth can’t be ignored.
Examines what sustained commitment looks like — staying the course, devoting resources, modeling behavior, and showing vulnerability. This section helps viewers reflect on how to maintain growth efforts over time and lead by example.
Ties capacity, challenge, and commitment back to awareness, action, accountability, beliefs, and broadening/building as a coherent foundation for change. The video ends with a brief wrap-up and Dr. E’s sign-off.
Hello, Dr. E here with the final installment of what I have titled the ABCs of Change. We started with A's, we moved on to the B's, and now we are at the C's of Change. Awareness, action, accountability is where we began. We move to beliefs, broaden and build. And now we're going to go into the Cs. The first C that I want you to think of and remember is capacity. How are you building, there's that word again, capacity. How are you enhancing what you have as resources, your skill, your will, your knowledge, all of the things that allow you to become a better organization, a better leader, a better institution or individual?
What are you doing? to both expand your knowledge, what are you doing to work on your skill set, but more importantly, how are you moving and shifting and pushing and nudging your will to do all of those difficult things that come along with affecting change? Many of us obviously have standards and practices or norms that we do, how are you pushing yourself outside of your comfort zones? How are you stepping outside of those boundaries of comfort in order to think differently, in order to practice differently, in order to be different as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion?
A lot of that begins with the capacity that we have both intellectually, both interpersonally, in all of those ways and all of those things that make us who we are and what we do as individuals and organization. So think about capacity, think about your skill set, think about the tools that you have at your disposal and what are you doing to enhance, to enlarge, to expand, all of those things. in healthy and positive ways. The second C I think is one that really isn't original, but think about it in a different way and that is challenge.
How are you challenging yourself to be better, to do better? How are you intentionally stepping into spaces and places that make you uncomfortable, that cause you to grow, develop, expand in all of those ways? How are you then challenging your teams and your leaders? to do the same. Famous or quote that I always think about is if it doesn't challenge us, it won't change us. And what that means and why that holds significant value for me is how do I as a leader place value on growing and developing?
And how am I setting up ways that allow that challenge to be smack dab right in my face so it can't be ignored. So I have to deal with it. So I have to address it. So I have to overcome it. So I have to move past it. So I have to learn from it and hopefully allow it to shape, develop, mold me as I am moving beyond it. And so think about challenges and think about intentionally constructing ways that allow you to challenge yourself, challenge your teams, and challenge your organization. And then the final C obviously is commitment.
How long, how will How do you place value on toeing the line? How do you stay in the space of challenging? How do you stay in the space of growth and development, particularly when it isn't comfortable? And how do you model that commitment? How do you show the commitment, particularly as it relates to devoting resources to it, building capacity, particularly as it relates to modeling what that commitment looks like? And then what does it mean to stay committed for you as an individual, for you as a leader, and for your organization.
Commitment looks differently to and for a lot of people. And so what does commitment mean to and look like for you? Is it staying the course? Is it staying active? Is it staying connected, staying visible, staying in ways that allow you to not just demonstrate some level of vulnerability perhaps, but then also what it means when you step into that space of vulnerability and how do you begin to talk about growth and development and change. And so when you think about those C's, capacity, challenge, and commitment, allow that to align with the A's as well as the B's, awareness, action, accountability, beliefs, broadening and building, and hopefully the ABCs of change will lead to a foundation of growth and development for you as a leader and your organization.
I'm Dr. E, and I'll see you next time.
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