Your Mark on the World


I just started reading Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner. Perhaps you’ve read it, or others by him? He is one of my favorite authors. His prose and wisdom cuts to the bone and penetrates the heart.

This passage by the narrator in the book touched me deeply because it speaks to where I am currently living in myself:

“Though I have been busy, perhaps over busy, all my life, it seems to me now that I have accomplished little that matter, that the books have never come up to what was in my head, and that the rewards – the comfortable income, the public notices, the literary prizes, and the honorary degrees – have been tinsel, not what a grown man should be content with. Whatever happened to the passion we had to improve ourselves, live up to our potential, leave a mark on the world? Our hottest arguments were always about how we could contribute.

“Whatever happened to the passion we had to improve ourselves, live up to our potential, leave a mark on the world?” What a wonderful question. Mine has not died, and in fact, burns hotter today inside me than ever. But in many ways, I have kept it at bay, in a closet, hidden from people who might otherwise ridicule it. I know that others would not understand this about me because they only witness my outer deeds, but I know that I have been holding back.

This past year has been one of great inner work for me, confronting many of my ego’s ways in which I hide from expressing the fullness of who I am and what I stand for in the world. I have been confronting in myself how I play it safe so as not to seem too farfetched, too non-ordinary. But truth-be-told: ordinary sucks, and the world does not need me in that pared down version of my Self. Look where ordinary has gotten us. We are in trouble, as both a species and a planet. Our common way of thinking, behaving and acting has us killing each other and the biology that is our home at an unprecedented rate.

Isn’t it time I stand up, a bit taller, with a touch more volume and fervor in my voice, to see what my real mark of contribution might be? Isn’t it time I take a stand for real transformation of the human condition as I know it is possible? I am the only one who can answer those questions, of course. The demons such a stand triggers exist only in my mind and are my battles to fight.

How about you? How are you holding back your contribution, limiting your mark on the world? How are you conforming and not saying what needs to be said, or not doing what needs to be done?

The world does not need you in your pared down version either. One thing we don’t have in the twenty-first century is the luxury of time. We must radically transform the way things currently operate in our organizational and social systems, and in a hurry. I bet you have something special to offer that effort, and I bet, like me, you have some inner demons to release in order to make your most meaningful contributions.

So let’s release ‘em and get on with doing the good works we know we can do. A primary purpose of The Change Leader’s Network is to convene people like you and me, who want to contribute more to our organizations and the world’s transformation, and collaborate about how taking a conscious change leadership approach amplifies our contribution and impact. And a conscious approach always starts with us becoming more conscious ourselves.

So, how are you holding back? What are the beliefs, fears, and doubts in your way? What is that special mark on the world that you want to make?

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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