Danielle V. Minson — Raising the Bar

July 10, 2017 | 0 Comments

Fundamental #23 — Embrace Change

For the better part of two years, our Federation team has been making a deliberate effort to define what drives our work and how we do it. The four core values of Community, Inclusivity, Learning, and Integrity rose to the top. The next step was to identify a list of fundamentals: actionable, daily core behaviors that bring our core values to life and define our culture. Each week, we make a point to focus on practicing a different fundamental, and I kick off that effort by sharing my thoughts on each one at the beginning of each week. Here are my thoughts for our twenty-third week:


EMBRACE CHANGE — What got us here is not the same as what will get us to the next level.  Get outside your comfort zone, rather than  hanging on to old ways of doing things.  Be excited by the possibilities that change brings.

The Jewish New Year starts with Rosh Hashanah and ends 10 days later with Yom Kippur.  During these ten days in between, Jewish tradition is to reflect on the year ending and on what we wish to change in the coming year for ourselves and for the world.  Personally, during these 10 days, every year I write out what I would like to change in myself and in my life each year.  So, this week’s Fundamental—Embracing Change—is a great Fundamental to reflect on. 

The truth is that we usually experience change as uncomfortable.  Even when we recognize that a decision or habit isn’t working for us, we have trouble making real change.  And when changes happens that came from someone or somewhere else, we get really uncomfortable and often angry. 

At the Federation, we have been living through a lot of change over the past few years.  Our staff has grown and changed, largely because of the success of Shared Business Services and our fund-raising beyond the traditional annual campaign (including Create Your Jewish Legacy and Agency Fund-raising Services). So it’s worth it to ask Amy how well our organization works with change. My sense is that we are getting better at accepting change.

But it is different to embrace change.  Maybe that will be the next stage.   Maybe we can aspire to this  in the new year of the Jewish calendar, 5777. 

To be successful will mean being more willing to experiment.  Even more important, it will mean being ok if experiments fail.  So long as we choose experiments that have a good chance of advancing our goals as an organization. And as long as we learn from the experiment whether it succeeds or fails, you should not feel guilty. I guess this goes back to practicing with problem solving.

As always, I welcome your responses and suggestions.

See here for Shep’s comments on all the fundamentals so far.

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