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This book was written so that we could share the challenges, strategies, and successes of applying a systemic change model to our operating unit. This change model resulted in improved employee job satisfaction, renewed work ethic, and created a sense of community in the virtual workplace. We wrote this book to support those who are committed to helping others move from an existing mindset to a new way of thinking by embracing hearts and minds in a transformative shift.

The reality I faced centered on being alone in the management of this large group and the inability to regularly meet with each individual to elicit the necessary changes. Yet this type of change needed to occur from the inside and then encompass the whole. This meant a structural change needed to happen that could be experienced at an emotional level that forced the individual and the whole group to move beyond their static zones of comfort. Each individual’s inner landscape would need to undergo a transformation and structural shift to change.

“We reflect on the past, imagine what could be, and then plan ways to make our thoughts become reality” (“Your Thinking Brain”, n.d., para. 1). This statement directly illuminates what occurred for a solid four months before, I, as manager, put my thoughts, ideas, and thinking onto paper. I reflected on the current situation and planned for what could be. I needed to leverage my inherent strengths and management style to meet and reach each individual employee at their current level of performance. To reach each individual, I needed more than a typical short-term professional development workshop or change intervention to cause lasting change.

It was essential that the change begin a process of continuous reflecting and adapting for this unit. Current practices could not be maintained. A new state was needed to satisfy the needs of the university, the needs and satisfaction of the employees, and, most importantly, the needs and learning of the students. As I considered change, I kept returning to the Descartes’ quotation, “I think; therefore, I am." This idea of thinking, reflecting, and being would prove to be a consistent undertone when determining how to change.

Linda Algozzini