Change leader, change thyself

Wasted Honor -

Carl R. ToersBijns is the author of the Wasted Honor Trilogy [Wasted Honor I,II and Gorilla Justice] and his newest book From the Womb to the Tomb, the Tony Lester Story, which is a reflection of his life and his experiences as a correctional officer and a correctional administrator retiring with the rank of deputy warden in the New Mexico and Arizona correctional systems.

Carl also wrote a book on his combat experience in the Kindle book titled - Combat Medic - Men with destiny - A red cross of Valor -

Carl is considered by many a rogue expert in the field of prison security systems since leaving the profession. Carl has been involved in the design of many pilot programs related to mental health treatment, security threat groups, suicide prevention, and maximum custody operational plans including double bunking max inmates and enhancing security for staff. He invites you to read his books so you can understand and grasp the cultural and political implications and influences of these prisons. He deals with the emotions, the stress and anxiety as well as the realities faced working inside a prison. He deals with the occupational risks while elaborating on the psychological impact of both prison worker and prisoner.

His most recent book, Gorilla Justice, is an un-edited raw fictional version of realistic prison experiences and events through the eyes of an anecdotal translation of the inmate’s plight and suffering while enduring the harsh and toxic prison environment including solitary confinement.

Carl has been interviewed by numerous news stations and newspapers in Phoenix regarding the escape from the Kingman prison and other high profile media cases related to wrongful deaths and suicides inside prisons. His insights have been solicited by the ACLU, Amnesty International, and various other legal firms representing solitary confinement cases in California and Arizona. He is currently working on the STG Step Down program at Pelican Bay and has offered his own experience insights with the Center of Constitutional Rights lawyers and interns to establish a core program at the SHU units. He has personally corresponded and written with SHU prisoners to assess the living conditions and how it impacts their long term placement inside these type of units that are similar to those in Arizona Florence Eyman special management unit where Carl was a unit deputy warden for almost two years before his promotion to Deputy Warden of Operations in Safford and Eyman.

He is a strong advocate for the mentally ill and is a board member of David's Hope Inc. a non-profit advocacy group in Phoenix and also serves as a senior advisor for Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council in Chino, California As a subject matter expert and corrections consultant, Carl has provided interviews and spoken on national and international radio talk shows e.g. BBC CBC Lou Show & TV shows as well as the Associated Press.

I use sarcasm, satire, parodies and other means to make you think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, March 31, 2014

Change leader, change thyself

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy

Using this idiom would be a great starting point for this article as it hits on the fact that a leader must change within themselves as an individual change before it can engage in on organizational change. Changing cultures or the way you do business takes self-understanding and then put the values into an organizational context.

Most of the time, we rarely see organizations change drastically but their people do. It is the right move to change performance strategies and inner structures to accomplish their revised goals with new policies and procedures.

Change takes time and in order to make successful change there must be sufficient time allotted for the process to work. One needs to assess when something fails, it must also address the mindsets and skill sets of those that executed the change. It is suggested that 50 percent of change fails because of senior staff failing to adjust their own behaviors to meet the organizational needs.

Many resort to a passive status quo that hampers or sabotages the attempts for change thus there must be change in people to make the change happen. It has been suggested that this will create a success rate four times more likely to succeed due to having the right people in the right places.

A common mistake, made even by companies that recognize the need for new learning, is to focus too much on developing skills. Training that only emphasizes new behavior rarely translates into profoundly different performance outside the sterile career developing seminars.

Individuals have their own inner lives, populated by their beliefs, priorities, aspirations, values, and fears. These interior elements vary from one person to the next, directing people to take different actions. This profile is a combination of his or her habits of thought, emotions, hopes, and behavior in various circumstances.

Profile awareness is therefore a recognition of these common tendencies or traits and the impact they have on others. Therefore, a careful selection of those that meet the criteria for change must be given a chance to become change leaders from the start of the project and endure the entire journey with consistency.

Organizational awareness involves the real-time perception of a wide range of inner experiences and their impact on your behavior. These include your current mind-set and beliefs, fears and hopes, desires and defenses, and impulses to take action.

This type of awareness is harder to master than profile awareness. While many senior executives recognize their tendency to exhibit negative behavior under pressure, they often don’t realize they’re exhibiting that behavior until well after they’ve started to do so. At that point, the damage is already done.

Therefore the message is to simply balance the change between people and the organizational awareness around them. Having the right people in the right places enhances success and instrumental in changing organizational cultures made up of mindsets, beliefs, fears and hopes as well as desires and naturally spent energies to take the right kind of action as the development of a new journey takes its course.