The Em Dash Is Dead. I’m Still Annoyed.

Hey there -

@#*$#^! 

Apparently, I write like AI now.

Katelyn was proofreading my newsletter one day and said, “This part sounds like AI.” But it wasn’t AI. It was all me!

First, AI came for my emojis. Then it came for my beloved em dash. AI is a greedy little bugger, though, so next it came for stock phrases I’ve been using for a lifetime (The truth is… and a few others.)*

I am reluctant to spring a contrived leadership or business lesson on you. And yet… here it is.

When I stepped back to evaluate why I was so frustrated, at the core of it was that I don’t want to change.**

Apparently, I am not alone. Some of the recent statistics on organizational change are mind-numbing.

• In 2022, employees experienced an average of 10 planned enterprise changes (Gartner)

• A mere 12% of business transformations achieve their intended outcome. (Bain) Probably because… ⬇️

• Only 38% of employees are willing to support enterprise-wide change initiatives (Gartner)

I like the way I write. I resent having to adopt new practices, so you won’t feel like you’re getting one more AI-written newsletter.

I’ve been around long enough to know my resistance to change doesn’t serve me in the long run, even if digging my heels in feels empowering some days.

Michael Bungay Stanier (author of The Coaching Habit and host of the Change Signal podcast) has been writing about “three modern change obsessions.”

First on his list is Claimed Agency. You can’t give people agency. They have to claim it for themselves. It also requires that leaders give up some control, certainty, and efficiency to make room for it.

There’s a scale for Claimed Agency. (Of course there is… we’re talking about MBS here!) On a scale of 1-10:

• 9 - 10 DNA Readiness

• 6 - 8 Expected Competence

• 4 - 5 Resented Compliance (e.g. ‘eye-roll’)

• 1 - 3 Exhausted Obedience

When it comes to AI and my newsletter, I’d love to say I’m at the top with DNA Readiness. I’m at eye-roll.

One innocent comment from Katelyn, plus a world suspicious of anything that smacks of AI, and suddenly new rules for my writing show up out of nowhere. All because we’re living through a bot invasion.

But I’m making the changes anyway. I decided there’s enough AI-generated content out there, and you don’t need more from me. The rules weren’t my idea. Following them was.

Which makes me wonder about those stats. Ten changes in a year and less than four in ten of us are willing to back them? How many of those got done “to” people instead of “with” them?

 If you lead a team through change, rate them using the scale above. Where are they? And if the answer is eye-roll, what would it take for you to make space for them to claim agency?

Same goes for you. This week, pick one change you’ve been resisting. Then claim it, or drop it.

Have a great week!

S

*I have methodically been removing anything from my writing that smells (reads) like AI: words, syntax, sentence structure, etc. 

**Which I realize sounds funny coming from an executive coach whose primary job is to help people change. And I myself always have at least one, if not two, coaches on speed dial. And yet… some days it’s hard to let go and try something new.

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