Change Management Tools--Ideal State Analysis.

UTOPIAS; IMAGINATION; KENNEDY, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963; FANTASY fiction; INTELLECT; PSYCHOLOGY; COGNITIVE ability

The article informs that successful change enablers rely on a handful of tools that work. One of the most powerful tools is ideal state analysis (ISA). Because of its power and universal applicability, ISA is an absolutely vital tool to any professional problem solver. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy fired the imagination of an entire country by painting a picture of an American walking on the surface of the moon by the end of the decade. This compelling vision helped galvanize the nation to support a quest that seemed impossible by any logical measure. The rest is history. President Kennedy's vision of a man on the moon is a classic example of an ideal state. In its purest form, an ideal state is a description of what someone wants, completely independent of what he or she thinks is possible. Creating a vision of an ideal future state is only the first step in ISA. The second step requires an honest assessment of the current state. The third step yields a number of creative alternatives to bridge the gap between the current state and the ideal state. While ISA seems straightforward in theory, it can include some serious difficulties in practice.