Tom Asacker

As Marshall McLuhan famously said it's "experience rather than understanding that influences our behavior". People's book shelves are groaning under the weight of self-help books. If they truely worked we'd all be healthier, wealthier and wiser, not to mention self-actualized!

Inertia has such allure that, when the snow melts and no clear previously made pathway is seen, we are then afraid to venture forth into the unbounded freedom to choose our own path.

Re: "Can a Book Help You Change" In an ocean of books, articles and exhortations about change (and how easy it can be) this excellent article is a breath of fresh air. It stands out, partly by recognizing that many of our present behaviors and patterns of thought have an addictive quality to them. Having held such myopic views myself, I know from personal experience. In organizations, trying to get people to see a perspective that challenges ways of thinking of themselves and their reality that they hold dear is almost as frustrating as suggesting to an alcoholic that they stop drinking. In fact, organization life itself tends to reinforce habitual thinking. Somebody in the grip of this often needs to "hit bottom," that is, suffer a defeat or failure of major proportions before they are receptive to a fresh look at the organization and their role in it.

Yep. As an addictions counselor agree. In psychology it is termed resistance. But at its worst it is an addiction to being addicted. Resistance brings to mind the metaphor of trying to pry open a mollusc.
Addiction focuses more on the process of the mollusc clinging from the inside, and how to alter it. Prying from the outside tends to stimulate and prolong further resistance, working on the clinging has a better chance.

Very true, Kathleen. Thank you.