Gone Fishing

The other day my brother, who has turned into a fanatical angler, came to take me out for a day’s fishing.  When I was much younger it was something I loved to do but have seldom had the chance to do it in the last 30 years.  He had to lug the now obligatory 2cwt of equipment and we settled down on a damp morning by a lovely lakeside.  It wasn’t long before I caught my first fish, which was about a 6lb carp, the biggest fish I’d ever caught till that day.  As the day wore on, the weather gently improved and we continued to catch fish.  By 5pm, there was a golden light on the water and all the colours glowed beautifully.  I watched herons come and go, a mink swim by and listened to magpies shriek. It was dusk when we packed up, having caught 40 fish between us, having had a lovely day out.

It occurred to me, on reflection, that many of the behaviours which help you to catch fish are also pretty important in business in general and in Change programmes in particular.  There is a lot of patience and waiting required.  This waiting is not a period of doing nothing, it is a time for observing the minutiae of what is happening.  In fishing you are looking for patterns on the water, in Change we look to see what people are doing and saying, and, just as importantly, what they are not saying and doing!  When, fishing, you need to change how you present your bait and the bait you use; in Change, you have to review how your message is getting across and adjust it for the audience, to consider what it takes to motivate your staff.  With both fish and people, you have no success unless you meet them where they are, or at the very least, you have to encourage them to come to you.  Fisherman do this by groundbaiting, or throwing food into the water near their bait; leaders have to create good reasons for people to want to change their ways.

So perhaps, if you are not getting the results you want, then you need to change what you are doing…

“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.”  John Buchan

“Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.”   Ted Hughes

Tags: Change, fishing

This entry was posted on Monday, September 13th, 2010 at 12:41 and is filed under Business Change, Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Leadership, Personal Blog, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.