Individual and Friend Summary Analysis

The dark philosopher Heraclitus aligns the importance of life to change. The philosopher argues that in the world, there is nothing permanent. The philosopher further retorts that the essence of life is change (Shaw, 2019). Despite Heraclitus arguing that change is paramount and is part of a human beings life, he never enlightened people on the challenges that they may go through as they aspire to find change.

According to Gesme & Wiseman (2010), there are various essential underpinnings to change including having a shared vision with your colleagues. JBY and I had the same vision to change our body weight and improve our health status through workout. Despite how difficult it seemed at first, I had to come up with an easier way to carry out our activities. JBY and I used the SMART goal model to help improve on cardio and increase weight training at the gym (SMART goals. 2021). The reason we employed the SMART goal model is because it would enable us to set achievable goals. Our very first goal was to decrease the time it took us to cover a distance of one mile. The second goal was to increase the weights we lifted at the bench press by about 20%. The other underpinning discussed by Gesme & Wiseman (2010) is creating a readiness to change. JBY and I made it clear that we needed changes in our health and came up with a simple structure and timetable to assist us. We Fostered reinforcement for our change desire by coming up with a table record that showed our schedule (Harris, 2012). The record would show the activities we engaged in to bring change to ourselves.

Caluw & Vermaak (2016) came up with a model of color thinking and argued that change is not simple, rather it takes up different shades. The scholars came up with the idea to enable individuals to differentiate the different ideologies about change. Each of the colors in the color model are required to represent different beliefs. Despite using the color model, it was very clear that our changes never occurred linearly. First, for JBY, who suffered COVID-19, instead of her weight decreasing in the course of our physical fitness activity, it actually increased and at the end of the project she had 180 pounds from 172.5 pounds. JBY began with a 3-mile run to a 4-mile run and to a 5-mile run. However, in the 1st week of August, she became fatigued and had to reduce the distance she covered to about a 0.5 mile walk and then to jogging over shorter distances. On the other hand, I was being weighed down by my chemotherapy treatment and could not go for longer distances. Despite my willingness to improve on my physical fitness, I had to take it slow. I would work out with dumbbells and go for shorter distances.

Our current health conditions were our major obstacles because they weighed us down. However, we were still focused on completing our challenge. The color model did not however appear real to us in our project because of the found nonlinear relationship. Using the SMART goal model, our goals appeared more realistic and easier (Les MacLeod EdD, 2012). While using the color model, one of the approaches that worked was the white print thinking. This is because the white print viewed change as a constant process (Dinesh, 2018). Despite JBY and I not being able to achieve what we wished accurately, the white print still made us believe that it was not yet over. The...

Compared to JBY, when using the color model, my progress showed a linear relationship. This means that the red and blue print worked for me, but could not work for JBY because her progress was nonlinear. The red print model represented motivation and how it impacts change. Blue print on the other hand represented the implementation of change. JBY on the other had was not consistent on change because she was weighed down by COVID 19 and ran shorter distances. At the beginning of the change challenge, she had 172.5 pounds and later on, after the challenge, she weighed 180 pounds. JBY gained 7.5 pounds. From the excel document, it can be noted that JBY did her walks and runs. However, in the first week of August, she did not engage in bench press and this may be the reason her weight increased since she did not burn fat. The white print approach works for JBY because the model represents the need for consistency. The white print model argues that the path for change is unpredictable and uncontrollable and this is the case for JBY (Hyslop, 2014). She could not control getting fatigued despite her need and zeal for change.

I believe that one of the implications for leadership in as far as our change process is concerned was that it brings about a shared vision among individuals. People are able to share the same ambitions and goals. Second, it helps create readiness for change (Haver, Akerjordet, & Furunes, 2013). This is achieved by enabling individuals to shift from a contented culture to one whereby they intrinsically yearn for change. It also enables people to deal with resisters. In our case, our health…