Eric Clapton and the Flow


Eric Clapton’s music is amazing. I am sitting on a ten hour plane flight from Frankfurt to Denver, watching the 2008 Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood concert at Madison Square Garden via the airline’s video programming. I tried to get tickets to that concert, but it was sold out in the blink of an eye. If you remember the rock groups Blind Faith and Traffic, then you know why.

Eric Clapton Steve Winwood

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood in the "zone"

Yesterday, Linda and I were conducting an all day training session with 125 operational excellence consultants in Copenhagen. I asked them to recall a time they performed their very best at something meaningful to them. You know, that once in a lifetime performance where for some reason you excel way outside your normal level, just nailing it. You ski the run like never before, or shoot the round of golf of your life. Once they recalled such an experience – and most everyone does – I asked them, “What caused it? What was different, what was unique in that moment than unleashed a potential buried within you that you had never previously expressed?”

I have asked this question of thousands of people over the years, starting way back in the early 1980’s at the Optimal Performance Institute. The answer is always the same. People report that they “lose themselves,” “stop thinking and just flow,” “enter a zone of pure awareness and just express.” And always, they report that it is a marvelous, awe-inspiring experience.

If there was one thing I wish I could do in my next life, it would be to play the guitar like Eric Clapton. What kind of inner zone must he enter to be able to feel the music and express it the way he does?

Listening to Steve and him right now, I feel that zone about me. Music does that. Listening to it transforms us. It takes us to a place “beyond our minds,” where we stop thinking and simply be, full of the inner joy that naturally wells up inside and washes over us with each familiar beat and note.

Not everyone loves Eric Clapton’s music as I do. For them, that inner experience of just being in the flow of the music might come from Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra or Andy Williams, like it does for my dad, or from Andrea Bocelli, like it does for Linda. The experience does not emanate from the musician; rather, their music touches that timeless and formless place in us. Not everyone’s boat is floated by the same music, but everyone has a favorite style that moves them.

But to play such music, that must be doubly wonderful. As talented as Clapton is, even on an off night he’s fantastic. But when he is in his mental zone, then even he reaches new heights.

When the Copenhagen consultants spoke of their optimal performance experiences, I could see them light up, even from the stage. As they recalled those moments of being in their flow, feeling the inner joy of really going for it, you could feel it in the room. What would our lives be like if we could be in that inner space more often?

What is it like for you when you are in your inner flow? How often does that happen for you? How easily can you consciously create it?

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Endorsements

With this extensively upgraded second edition, Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson solidify their status as the leading authorities on change leadership and organizational transformation. This is without question the most comprehensive approach for leaders who are serious about making change a strategic discipline. Beyond Change Management is an intelligent book by two of the most knowledgeable and accomplished masters of their craft, and it’s one that every conscious change leader should adopt as their guide to creating more meaningful organizations.

Jim Kouzes
Coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership


Read this great book by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson and learn how to use their multi-dimensional approach to lead transformation masterfully and consciously!

Marshall Goldsmith
World-renowned executive coach
Author of the New York Times best-sellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There


An important move toward a more integral business consulting approach, very much recommended for those interested in the topic and ways to actually apply it. 

Ken Wilber
Author, The Integral Vision, A Brief History of Everything, and over a dozen other best-sellers


Dean and Linda are core to the field of conscious change leadership, and continue to stretch and push its boundaries in this rich and deep compendium. This is a must read from two consummate thought leaders who have devoted their careers to developing highly successful change leaders. Read it and immediately improve your change leadership or consulting success.

Bev Kaye
CEO, Career Systems International
Author of Love 'em or Lose 'em: Getting Good People to Stay


This book is about mastery of leading the transformational change process written by masters of the craft.  For corporate leaders and consultants who consider themselves committed students of the process of organizational change.

Daryl Conner
Chairman, Conner Partners
Author of Managing at the Speed of Change and Leading at the Edge of Chaos


Beyond Change Management is a timely how-to guide for leading change in the 21st century. It provides both a conceptual roadmap, and practical tools and techniques for successfully transforming organizations.

Noel Tichy
Professor, University of Michigan
Co-author with Warren Bennis of JUDGMENT: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls


Once again, Dean and Linda have nailed it! Beyond Change Management is an extraordinary book examining the shifts in change management that have occurred over the years. This book offers real, practical solutions for change practitioners to become extraordinary conscious change leaders.

Darlene Meister
Director, Unified Change Management
United States House of Representatives


Powerful business solutions to the current chaos facing many organizations today. Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson get to the heart of change, the human touch, by using timeless techniques and tools.
Ken Blanchard
Co-Author of The One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level


Having applied this methodology for two years to manage change inside Microsoft, it has been instrumental in our ability to land change effectively, engage employees and deliver results quickly. The Change Leader’s Roadmap allows us to lead change with precision and minimal outside consulting, while at the same time growing change leadership capability internally. This is the most complete change methodology we have found anywhere.

Pete Fox
General Manager, Corporate Accounts
Microsoft US


This newest edition of The Change of Leader’s Roadmap is an invaluable, comprehensive and practical guide for envisioning an organization’s desired future, designing the structures and practices necessary to make it happen, and implementing them effectively. The book describes the change process in nine distinct phases and outlines the activities and tasks that need to occur in each phase. It provides change leaders with an essential map for successfully traversing the complex and uncertain terrain of transformational change.   

Thomas G. Cummings
Professor and Chair, Department of Management & Organization
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California


This is the next best thing to having Dean, Linda and the Being First team riding alongside your complex change initiative. The Change Leader’s Roadmap breeds confidence in senior executive “Champions” to guide not just a successful transformational change, but most importantly, to develop the mission critical organizational CULTURE that will ensure unparalleled return on investment. Nothing I have seen in my 32 years of leading change comes close.

Jeff Mulligan
Former CEO, Common Wealth Credit Union
Mayor, City of Lloydminster


After implementing more than 2000 business strategy and operational excellence initiatives, we set out to find the best change methodology and toolbox in the world. The methodology this book describes is it! Study it thoroughly, because the thinking, process approach and pragmatic tools really work!

Thomas Fischer
Director COO
Valcon Management Consultants A/S
Copenhagen


A practical, step-by-step guide for change leaders, managers and consultants. The book provides conceptually grounded, real world, time tested tools and guidance that will prove invaluable to those faced with navigating the challenges of leading organizational change in today's turbulent times.

Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar in Residence
MSOD Program, American University
Organizational Change Consultant