Change and the Seven Levels of Awareness

I have been a conscious change agent for over 20 years now and I have learned along the way that few groups of people ever change at the pace I wish they would. Whether it's trying to get a kid to go to treatment or getting the administration to understand the connections between behavior and food, no group of people has ever changed at my pace. As I pondered this over the years I developed a way of of understanding how groups and people change. I call it the Seven Levels of Awareness:

1. Exposure: A person gets exposed to a different way of thinking.
2. Acknowledgment: The group or person acknowledges that perhaps their mental models no longer function effectively.
3. Commitment to Inquiry: There is a conscious effort to examine the issue(s).
4. Storming or Fever: When the budding awareness conflicts with existing beliefs and practices.
5. Experimentation: The group or person tries on new behaviors on practices.
6. Practice: The group or person consciously tries to integrate the new beliefs and practices into their daily life.
7. Integration: The new behavior or belief becomes a natural part of group or person's daily life. 

As I embark on yet another journey of change in the public school system I have to check every now and then to see if there are actually any passengers on my ship. It takes time. It takes time. It takes time. I keep repeating that to myself. The dietary mess we find ourselves has been 80 years in the making.

The Green Revolution began after the Great Depression generation watched their friends and relatives go hungry and in some cases actually die of hunger. They did not want to see that happen again so they began experimenting with synthetic fertilizers derived mostly from petroleum. Living now in the age of peak oil this seems insane but at the time petroleum was plentiful and cheap. Science was seen as the messiah for modern times. All of these factors combined synergistically to create incredible surpluses in food and eventually incredible surpluses in our waistlines.

As Peter Senge often points out,  however, today's problems are yesterday's solutions.It seemed like a good idea at the time mom! The result of these shifts has been that the way of thinking of the Green Revolution became the new normal. The new normal since the 1950's is a massive disconnect between our food and us. Seeing a 32 ounce sugary soda as an adequate substitute for breakfast would have seemed ludicrous to my farming ancestors but that is exactly where we are at. Soda pop was an expensive luxury during the depression. Now it's just normal.

Three generations later, this grandchild of the depression generation has to bring to awareness the common knowledge of my great grandparents. I begin with just talking about things with the people I am around. I loan out books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" to the person who purchases the food for the school. I leave informational fliers on the staff table. And of course I blog. This is the Exposure stage.

The principal of one school finally acknowledged that the school sign which has three foot high Pepsi letters above the 8 inch letters of the name of the school bugged him too. That school sold $5,000 worth of Pepsi products last year, they get free advertising on public property, and the Pepsi company made the school pay $300 for new Pepsi letters!

Getting people to commit to inquiry, whether it's an alcoholic contemplating sobriety or a school contemplating health requires the change agent to raise the discomfort level so high that they are forced to think about it. One young man developed an inflamed liver and kidney from his daily diet of soda and energy drinks. He went to the AMA doctor but finally started thinking about his habits. The doctor gave him pills but the real change occurred when he switched to drinking juice instead of pop, He inquired pretty much on his own.


The holiday season is when the Storming and Fever stage looms large. Deprivation issues arise when people think they will be missing out on their sugary goodies. Some of this results from values. I would much rather have a lean mobile body than a quick sugar rush but this perspective emerged over time. When people feel like they are going to be missing out on something, resentment can set in. Feelings of loss set in. It's the same when an alcoholic gives up alcohol for awhile and relapses later on. There is a grief during this time. Many alcoholics refer to quitting drinking as the loss of a friend. Seeing that our food practices today are essentially addictions, the same process takes place when I suggest to staff that perhaps that there might be an alternative to doughnuts at staff meetings.

I remember when I was in junior high back in the 1970's watching the teachers sitting in their staff room smoking and playing poker during lunch. Today schools are tobacco free zones although I have observed some old diehards still sneaking a smoke behind the buildings. Not everybody catches up to the new ways of thinking.

There is a relief that results when new ways of thinking are finally integrated into daily life. There is still a great deal of resistance to the notion of health at school. When I suggested at one staff meeting that we remove the pop machines, several teachers commented that the kids would just go buy the same products at the local junk mart. I responded quickly that following that logic, perhaps the school should sell cigarettes and alcohol because they could just go get them somewhere else anyway. The school may as well get the money!