It's early winter in Boston, the very beginning of the year, and I set out before dawn for my morning circuit of the Charles River's lower basin. The city is waking, preparing for the coming day, but the basin is still quiet.

Winter dawn in Boston as seen from the Cambridge bank of the Charles River. Photo by Tara Bithia. Courtesy Cambridge Fire Department.
Normally, I don't see the dawn, but I'm a little earlier than usual, and at this time of year, the sunrise is as late as it gets. As I come around the turn in the path below the Longfellow Bridge, I see a pink tinge in the clouds to my left. I realize that on this morning the view of the sunrise from the Cambridge bank will be striking. So I decide to follow my usual path, but in the opposite of my usual direction.
I cross the Longfellow Bridge, walking backwards much of the way, to face the sunrise. The sky in the East brightens steadily, and the clouds change from pink to red to a glorious orange. Walking upstream on the Cambridge side, I notice sunlight in the treetops, gradually working its way down to ground level. And then the sun falls directly on me. The beginning of the new day.
Beginnings can be filled with possibility — inspiring and exciting. And then letdown can follow, when our aspirations don't come to pass, or when we encounter obstacles that trip us up in frustratingly familiar ways.
Here are some tips for handling beginnings.
- You can't change the past
- At least one element from the past is always with us — ourselves. Life is repertoire — new efforts often involve many of the same people, who bring with them not only their experiences, but also the problems of the past. Fresh starts usually aren't really fresh.
- See things as they really are
- Beginnings can be filled
with possibility —
inspiring and exciting - Events, like sunrises or new years, can seem more significant than they really are. When the sun rose over the Charles, the world didn't change — the city's birds kept singing and the river's waves kept waving. The flow of events is often more continuous than we recognize.
- Seek inspiration in the real
- When a transition of true significance arrives, it might not be marked by dramatic shifts in Nature, or astronomy, or the calendar. When we depend on the newness of the effort, or a new year, or a sunrise, to indicate significant transitions, we might let other important transitions pass unnoticed. Find inspiration in what's really happening, where the opportunity really lies.
- Focus on the truly new
- What is new is the chance to try again, this time with a memory of past experience. Maybe we've learned something. Maybe we can make different choices this time.
Helen Keller once said that when one door closes, another opens. But sometimes doors open all by themselves, often without our noticing them. Is a door opening for you? When did you last check? Top
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Related articles
More articles on Organizational Change:
Now We're in Chaos
- Among models of Change, the Satir Change Model has been especially useful for me. It describes how people
and systems respond to change, and handles well situations like the one that affected us all on September
Eleventh.
Training Bounceback
- Within a week after we've learned some new tool or technique, sometimes even less, we're back to doing
things the old way. It's as if the training never even happened. Why? And what can we do to change this?
Power, Authority, and Influence: A Systems View
- Power, Authority, and Influence are often understood as personal attributes. To fully grasp how they
function in organizations, we must adopt a systems view.
How to Find Lessons to Learn
- When we conduct Lessons Learned sessions, how can we ensure that we find all the important lessons to
be learned? Here's one method.
Way Too Much to Do
- You're good at your job — when you have enough time to do it. The problem is that so much comes
your way that you can't possibly attend to it all. Some things inevitably are missed or get short shrift.
If you don't change something soon, trouble is sure to arrive.
See also Organizational Change for more related articles.
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- Earned Value Management, widely used approach to project management, is most useful in contexts in which estimators are familiar with the Tasks, the Technologies, and the Teams. But even then, it is vulnerable to the tactics of those who game the metrics. Available here and by RSS on August 20.
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