How can you effectively lead change in your business? According to April Rinne, you should consider coddiwompling more often.
April Rinne, Author of FLUX: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change
Coddiwompling? Ever done that? And Niksen? What about Niksen?
Have you ever thought about running slower? Do you often see what’s invisible right in front of you? What about getting lost? Do you like getting lost? Do you trust those asking you to change? What does your “enough” look like for you? How can you look at your career in leadership as a portfolio, not a position? What are you doing to be “all the more human?” Can you let go of the future to lead right now?
According to April Rinne, exploring these concepts and questions can help you develop superpowers and become a more effective leader in a constantly changing world.
Change is a theme in our daily work at DevryBV Sustainable Strategies, and it’s why I am adding April’s book to my recommended reading list for our clients and friends.
In our business of helping companies become more sustainable, a lot of change is required of our clients:
change in mindset,
change from short-term thinking to long-term consequences and outcomes,
change in organizational structure,
change in data collection, analysis, reporting,
change in products and services offered,
change in behavior,
change in budgeting,
change in corporate narrative,
change in stakeholder engagement, and
change in change itself.
Change. Change. Change!
I often joke that we should rename our company from DevryBV Sustainable Strategies to DevryBV Change Strategies.
If you’re not looking to change, then bury your head in the sand like an ostrich because when we walk through the door and sit in the board rooms, around leadership tables, with employees on the shop floor, or out at the rail yards and in the farm fields, we are looking, listening, smelling, sensing for what works and what might need to change to work even better from a sustainability standpoint.
We are indeed agents of change. We thrive on it. Change motivates us to do what we do every day at DevryBV. We want to know that our efforts result in meaningful change for our communities and our natural world. But change is complex, and often, it’s especially challenging because, as in our case, we are not the ones with the decision rights to make the change. We must do a lot of convincing through constructive engagement, the art of inquiry, and building exceptional trust with our clients to help them see the change through to its positive conclusion.
Changing and driving change can be both exhilarating and exhausting, which basically describes all of our lives. We all live in a state of constant change. If there is one thing we can count on when we walk out our door in the morning, it is that change is coming our way. The big unknown is: What does that change look like?
At DevryBV, we are always on the lookout for people who can assist us with new ideas and ways to motivate leaders to lead through change. Enter April Rinne, a super leader and the author of FLUX, a book on reorienting one’s attitude to change (i.e., developing the Flux Mindset) and then utilizing effective tools for change, or what April calls the 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.
This recommendation is based on reading the phenomenal book myself (I found it in my local bookstore here in Excelsior, MN) and from knowing April personally for many years. I met April in 2014 as part of our Young Global Leader cohort at the World Economic Forum. In addition to being kind, inquisitive, and inspiring, I describe April as uber-adaptable and flexible in all facets of her life (not the least of which is her ability to tip her thinking upside down—literally—by doing a killer yogi handstand anywhere she happens to be in the world). I truly admire April for who she is and how she leads. April is a leader worth following, and her book should be added to the holiday wish lists of all leaders in the midst of dealing with change this season, which means every business leader should read this book to master the art of change leadership and what I call “change living.”
April is a self-described “change navigator,” and she has come by that title by navigating awful circumstances that changed her life dramatically from one moment to the next. I will not tell her personal story for you in this book review because that is part of the introduction to her book, but I will say that she was shaped by unwelcome change and had to stare that unyielding change in the face during her early college years. All of us can learn from her journey of change and her relationship with change in a manner that allows us to become more effective change navigators ourselves.
April is careful to note that her book is not a book on change management but rather a book on change mindset. She argues that unless we change our mindset by developing the Flux Mindset, we cannot unlock the superpowers that come with it: Run Slower, See What’s Invisible, Get Lost, Start with Trust, Know Your “Enough,” Create Your Portfolio Career, Be All the More Human, and Let Go of the Future.
8 Flux Superpowers.
Once we unlock the superpowers we can rewrite our own script. Imagine that! Writing our own script for change instead of letting Change rewrite it for us. Her advice sets us on course as leaders to be our best, more confident, most adaptable, most empowered, very human selves in the midst of constant change.
When you make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and sit in your favorite chair with a blanket over your legs, readying yourself to read the book and imbibe April’s wisdom, ensure you have a journal and pen. She has questions and short exercises to do as you read, and you will want to take the right amount of time to reflect and apply her ideas to your life and situation.
April’s book would be a nice gift for your leadership team, your colleagues, or even your book club. Think about hosting a small roundtable with local businesses and working through some of the questions. After reading the book, business leaders should feel the burden of unwelcome change collectively lift and the Flux Mindset take hold.
The book is not just for business leaders. I am thinking of giving it to my husband for Christmas (shhh…don’t tell him), since the way we handle change is so very different. Having a ground truth guide like FLUX to guide our conversations could be a game changer in our household. I bet April hadn’t thought about her book being good for couple’s therapy. I digress.
At DevryBV, we are excited to place FLUX on our reading list, and we commend the book to our clients and future clients making the journey in The Humanverse. Best wishes for the close out of 2024 and for all the exciting, unwieldy, difficult, exhilarating, unwelcome, and welcome change that is coming your way in 2025.
For those unfamiliar with the terms as I was until I read April’s book, the definition of coddiwomple is “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.” Niksen, a Dutch concept of “doing nothing,” is a stress-relief practice based on just being rather than being present. I commend these ideas and many more to you through April’s book, which you can purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many places (click here), but if you have the time, you can also venture to your local book store. I bought mine at Excelsior Bay Books on Water Street.
As you deepen your sustainable leadership practice, may you coddiwomple more in the future, may you find more niksen in your life, and may the Flux Mindset be with you.