Strategies for making your ideas happen

This post contains my notes from the book: More Fearless Change: Strategies for making your ideas happen by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising.

The book contains many useful strategies for making change happen in an effective manner. Read the strategies from two perspectives:

1. As a change agent: You see a need for change, and you have an idea that will facilitate the change. You need to convince those around you to join in, to invest in your idea, and to nurture it to full benefit.
2. As a change recipient: You are the person whom the change is going to affect, in terms of what you do, how much you get paid, your work routine, your place of work, etc. How will you want to be treated? What information do you expect and from whom? Which time frame do you want to decide your path?

The strategies are available as a free download : https://fearlessjourney.info/download/

They include the 15 new strategies and the 48 original strategies.

These strategies may seem just common sense but you will realise they are not common practice. It may seem obvious to an expert but we are all not experts. The patterns may seem like little things, but each of them makes a bigger difference than you may think.

While making use of these strategies, you need to have a framework. The following is one adopted by the authors:

The first thing to do is to strategise. This means that you should take some time for self-reflection to determine whether you values are aligned with those of the change initiative. The patterns to consider here are: ( please download the above two files to see the details of the strategies)

1. Know Yourself
2. Evolving Vision
3. Concrete Action Plan
4. Low-Hanging Fruit

Once you have strategised and decided to want to do it( the change initiative), the second thing to do is that you need to share information and seek for help when needed. The patterns to consider here are:

1. Elevator Pitch
2. Town-Hall Meeting
3. Go-To Person
4. Future Commitment
5. In Your Space/Persistent PR

The third thing to do is to inspire others towards the change initiative. The patterns to consider here are:

1. Emotional Connection
2. Accentuate the Positive
3. Imagine That
4. Brown Bag
5. Study Group
6. External Validation
7. In Your Space
8. Sharing a Hometown Story
9. A Personal Touch
10. Providing a Shoulder to Cry On
11. Ask for Help
12. Sincere Appreciation
13. Fear Less
14. Champion Skeptic
15. Group Identity
16. Evangelists
17. Bridge Builders
18. Guru on Your Side

The fourth thing to do is to deal with resistance. The patterns to consider here are:

1. Pick Your Battles
2. Wake-up Call
3. Myth Buster
4. Easier Path
5. Fear Less
6. Champion Skeptic
7. Bridge Builder
8. Corridor Politics
9. Whisper in the General’s Ear

The authors have also given some links to strategies from other people and also a quick summary of all the strategies. They can be found below:

• You can find a quick summary of all the patterns here
• You can find links to external pattern references here