Change Environment

If you want to see dramatic changes in your life, consider exploring and changing your
environment. John Maxwell says this in the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, "if you're
always at the head of the class, then you're in the wrong class."

Maxwell says that in order to change our environment to something more conducive to our

growth, we have to recognize and make the most of our choices. We have the power to choose
what we spend our time doing, who we spend our time doing it with and where we spend our
time doing it.

1. Assess Your Current Environment

In order to make the necessary choices about your environment, you have to know what
it currently is. Think of it like a GPS; in order for the device to give you directions to your
final destination, it first has to know where you are starting from.

Who do you currently spend the most time with? What do you spend your time doing?
Where do you spend your time doing it? Are these people, activities and places helping
or hurting your personal growth?

2. Change Yourself and Your Environment

After taking a good look at where you are currently at, it’s time to change the areas that
need to be improved on. But simply changing your environment, but not our own
attitudes, isn’t enough. As your environment changes you must change with it.

Challenge Yourself in Your New Environment Focus on the Moment  “Today is when
everything that’s going to happen from now on begins.”Harvey Firestone Jr.  You can
only really live in the moment you’re in. So to me that’s always the happiest moment. 
Mother Teresa observed, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have
only today. Let us begin.”

In 1973 wrote out his ideal growth environment, which consisted of the following
elements:

 Others are ahead of me.

 I am continually challenged.
 My focus is forward.
 The atmosphere is affirming.
 I am often out of my comfort zone.
 I wake up excited.
  Failure is not my enemy.
 Others are growing.
 People desire change.
 Growth is modeled and expected.

If you want to change both your environment and yourself, these guidelines are a great
place to start.

3. Change Who Your Spend Your Time With

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. – Jim Rohn

There are few things in our life that have a bigger impact on us than who we spend our
time with. It is a proven fact that your health, wealth and happiness will be the average
of the people you spend time with. According to a Harvard study, the people with whom
you habitually associate are called your reference group, and they will determine as
much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life.

When looking to change your environment, start with the people you spend your time
with. If you want to be more positive, spend time with positive people. If you want to
make more money, spend time with people who make more money than you. If you
want to be a successful entrepreneur, spend time with successful entrepreneurs.

4. Challenge Yourself

Many people love being the smartest person in the room, the big fish in the small pond.
They are rarely challenged this way and never have to leave their comfort zone. But if
you really want to make the most of your environment and grow, you must continually
challenge yourself.

Maxwell suggests finding one major growth opportunity every week, following through
on it, and then learning from it. This could from attending conferences or seminars,
taking another successful person out to lunch to learn from them, or simply trying a
challenging activity that scares you.

If you are the smartest person in the room, it’s time to change rooms. You grow when
you are challenged.

5. Focus on the Moment

Today is when everything that is going to happen from now on begins. – Harvey
Firestone Jr.

It’s easy to let past failures or future fears determine our choices today, but Maxwell
says that in order to make the best choices and maximize our growth, we must be
focused on the current moment.
Don’t worry about what failures you had yesterday or what may go wrong tomorrow, if a
change needs to be made, make it today. The current moment is the only one you have
complete control over, make the most of it.

6. Move Forward Despite Criticism

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are
wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics
are right. To map out a plan of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same
courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win
them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you make positive changes in your environment and your life, you will receive
criticism from family in friends who feel you are leaving them behind. As you become
more and more successful, the criticism will grow louder. People love to tell you that you
can’t do something. In order to create the best environment possible and grow to your
full potential, you will have to learn to ignore this criticism.

The hard part is, this criticism won’t always come from “haters”. It may be coming from
well meaning people who think they have your best interests in mind. But it doesn’t
change the fact that they are giving you bad advice. Listen to any advice you receive,
but consider the sources. Have the been where you want to go? Is their current
environment and life one you want to follow? If the answers to these questions are no,
their criticism should probably be ignored, no matter what their intentions are.

Creating the right environment If you are a leader, do everything in your power to grow
yourself and create the right environment in which others can grow. It will be the best
investment you ever made as a leader.

Surroundings
By The John Maxwell Company | April 29, 2014 | 1 
The season of spring got its name from nature’s sudden display of growth. The word
“spring” literally means to leap, burst forth, or fly up. When conditions are right—warmer
temperatures, longer days, and more sunlight—grasses and flowers seem to spring up
from the ground overnight. However, in the wrong environment, where there’s
inadequate rainfall or freezing temperatures, growth gets delayed. 
To grow to our full potential, we have to be in the right environment. Growth thrives in
favorable conditions. You and I grow the most when we surround ourselves with people
and opportunities conducive to our development.
What does a good growth environment look like?
1) A place where others are ahead of me.
Seek to spend time with people who are smarter, faster, and more successful than you
are. If you’re always at the head of the class, then you’re probably in the wrong class.
2) A place where I’m continually challenged.
A good growth environment puts pressure on us to improve. If our daily work is too easy
or comfortable, then we shortchange ourselves and stunt our development. It’s healthy
to be in over your head from time to time. It forces you to swim, and you grow stronger
as a result. Yet, while being out of your comfort zone challenges you to swim, being out
of your strength zone causes you to drown. Ideally, you want to be in a place that
pushes you to sharpen your strengths, but not one that expects you to perform well in
areas where you have no natural ability.
3) A place where my focus is totally forward.
Some organizations attempt to preserve yesterday instead of changing tomorrow; their
definition of progress is to walk backwards slowly. They impede the growth of their
people. On the other hand, influential companies—those that look to the future and
consider how to transform it—inspire their people to grow.
4) A place where the atmosphere is affirming.
Encouragement is like oxygen to the soul, and everyone needs it. Search out
environments where people cheer one another on to greatness.
5) A place where I wake up excited.
Do you dread going to work or do you look forward to it? Gravitate toward environments
that tap into your passion. When you find them, no one has to provide you with
motivation because you’re already inwardly energized to do your job.
6) A place where failure isn’t my enemy.
It’s difficult to develop in an environment where you’re not free to fail. The best growth
atmospheres reward risk-taking and daring, and they accept that mistakes are a natural
part of life. In them, failure is viewed as a stepping-stone to success rather than as a
source of shame.
7) A place where others are growing.
Just as a group of long-distance runners tend to push one another to maintain a fast
pace, a team of people who prioritize personal growth spur one another to keep getting
better.

e Role of Leadership in Organizational Change

Organizational change is dened as a deliberate eort by the leader or manager
of the organization aimed at improving the organization. While it is possible that
internal and external factors such as technological, social or economic or moti-
vational factors may lie behind the change process, it is also possible that visions
and innovative ideas of organization leaders may lie behind it, too (Abbas and
Asghar, 2010, p.18).
Curry (1992, pp.23–25) has cited many dierent authors to identify various
roles that the leaders may play to facilitate the change. ese are (Cited by:Gray,
1997, pp.8–9):
Leaders play an important role in the institutionalization of organizations, cre-
ating an environment where change can take place or aecting the perceptions
and attitudes of members of the organization.
• Leaders help to identify and to shape the issues that lead to innovation, to
dene the organization as an environment, to facilitate discussions, and to
encourage more participation in innovative activities. ey ensure participa-
tion of other members of the organization to the decision making process.
• Leaders create coalitions to support change, and they follow the important
processes.
• Leaders may provide nance and other incentives for participation in the
change process.
• Leaders are the sponsors of change sponsors, and they attempt to create a
synergy.
• Leaders perform tasks that may facilitate change such as collecting informa-
tion, communicating with other members of the organization, developing new
coalitions, and identifying existing coalitions that perceive their members as
stakeholders within this process.
• Leaders shall have a vision so that they may initiate the change. Moreover, de-
cision-making and communication processes shall be mutual. Otherwise, the
culture that was created as a result of the change shall not be shared

Conclusion and Discussion

Change is an essential concept, which never goes out of date and always continues
to be discussed, in the eld of management. Today, we experience continuous
change in all kinds of structures as an inevitable condition due to vital reasons.
e developments in the eld of science and technology, which have an impor-
tant role in satisfaction of human requirements in particular, force organizations
to undergo a serious structural change. erefore, it is only possible for organi-
zations to sustain their existence in line with their missions, only by keeping up
with current developments and changes. Organizations are trying to meet the
demands that arise as a result of all developments that are experienced, and to
adapt to change. Leaders shall have a signicant eect on achieving this adap-
tation. However, it is almost impossible that these continuous organizational
changes may be succeeded by managers with lesser visions. us, managers with
leadership qualities are required in order to ensure a successful transformation
in the organizations. Managers with dierent leadership qualities are employed
in today’s organizations. It is not enough for a leader just to motivate his or her
employees on work, to take steps to improve their performance or to motivate
them. e leader shall also have the knowledge and technique to ensure that the
organizational change is carried out successfully.
Many researches on the role of leaders in organizational change show that
leaders who attach importance to participation in organizational decisions, who
are agreeable with a democratic approach, and who keep their communication
channels always open are more successful in the works for achieving change. is
leadership style, which may keep up with the changes that may occur around the
business while keeping its organizations at the top level in terms of eciency,
is named as the “Transformational Leadership Model” within the literature.
us, transformational leadership has become the most preferred and accepted
leadership model for organizational change. Transformational leaders work to
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determine the most appropriate vision for the organization and to realize radical
changes that shall be performed in economic, social and technological terms to
reach their goals in line with this vision. Atransformational leader shall create
a detailed plan of change and manage the process in the best way to bring the
organization to the future in the most appropriate way for its current condi-
tion. Failure shall be inevitable if the organizational change process can not be
planned and managed properly.
When the need for change arises, it shall be ensured that the necessary infra-
structure conditions are met and that the change is perceived positively in both per-
sonal and organizational contexts in order to realize the change. In such a condition,
it would also be possible to remove any resistance that may cause the change to fail.
At this point, leaders shall ensure the harmony and consistency of the change pro-
cess with the strategies, policies, visions, goals, objectives, values, and beliefs of the
business in order to manage the change well. ey shall take necessary precautions
to prevent resistance against change, to keep communication channels open,
and to support the development of the skills and knowledge required for change.
Dierences in organizational structure shall also be considered in the change.
Because the structure of each organization is dierent and the change made in one
organization may not be suitable for another organization. All dierences shall be
considered when you are managing a change. Changes applied regularly and prop-
erly by considering organizational culture and structure will be successful.