Weekly Reflection #15 - Surfing Change
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe)
Insight
It is easy to treat Change Management as a means of controlling the change itself, as if changes were discrete events you could shove into a box on a specific timeline. But change is continuous, it's fluid, and it's much more powerful than any of us can truly control. Systems were changing long before we intervened, and they will continue to change long after we are gone. Surfers understand this intuitively. They can't control the formation of ocean waves. Instead, they learn to read the waves, making adjustments to their positions so they can participate in the act of surfing. The practice isn't controlling the environment; it's about developing the skill and presence to move within it. That's the magic of change management. It's not about taming the ocean, it's learning to surf.
Wisdom
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts
Reflection
Are you building processes that assume change stops, or ones that assume it never will?
Lagniappe
- Debug Mode DELAYED - I'm moving the FREE Office hours back two weeks. Our next is March 19th, 2026 on Youtube Live. Sign up here.
- Our newest episode of Book Overflow is out. This week we discuss Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, our first science fiction book on the show. (It kinda counts, Andy Weir is a software engineer!)
- We also had Carl Brown from Internet of Bugs back on the show this time we discussed On Trusting Trust by Ken Thompson, and it extended into a lively discussion on trust and security in LLMs and AI.
- As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reply and let me know what resonates.