Moose Magazine Online

‘The Midway Point of Change Almost Always Looks Like a Disaster!—and That’s Okay!’

Guest Speaker Vicki Hitzges Urges Moose Men and Women To ‘Conquer the Challenges of Change’

> As one of the few outside-the-fraternity keynote Convention speakers in Moose history, Vicki Hitzges obviously represented a major change in the fraternity’s way of doing business when she went to the lectern Friday night, June 25. She was not a member of the Women of the Moose, and discussed only briefly the specifics of our Order’s business. But, speaking to an organization in the midst of huge change—and coming from a business that’s experienced as much technological change as any over the last 20 years—Hitzges was perhaps the ideal person to speak on “Conquering the Challenges of Change.”

Hitzges, a Dallas-based veteran of television news and public relations who has interviewed every U.S. President since Gerald Ford, shared amusing personal insights on the tumult of organizational and technological change. Tailoring her remarks for her audience, she related how she’d had the opportunity to visit both Mooseheart and Moosehaven earlier in the year.

It is specifically because of these two communities we have built, Hitzges asserted, that the Moose cannot allow itself the “luxury” of standing still with business processes that may be comfortable, but don’t work anymore.

“You have hundreds of children and seniors depending on you,” Hitzges reminded her audience, “and to be able to do the same great work, you’re going to have to change.”

She recalled that shortly after moving from television to public relations in the late 1980s, she had to be forced “kicking and screaming” by a supervisor, to a use a computer instead of a typewriter for the first time.

“I was absolutely convinced that I’d never need this; that I’d be able to do anything I ever needed to do, on my typewriter.” Hitzges paused to let this sink in, knowing how utterly ludicrous such a belief sounds today—but also knowing that many of her listeners may have felt exactly the same way 10 or 15 years ago.

“Now, I literally do my business (as a motivational speaker) through the Internet,” she declared with a smile. “People contact me and book me for speeches through my Web site!”

Perhaps most importantly, Hitzges assured her audience that it is completely normal for anyone to feel opposition to change—and discomfort with it.

“Because we like to feel as though we’re good at what we do—and in the middle of change, very often we feel as though we’re suddenly no good at all at what we’re supposed to be doing!”

She added: “The midway point in the process of change almost always looks like a disaster! And that’s okay!”

Again discussing the Moose specifically, she said, “To stay the same—doing what you do for people in need—you have to change.”

“The beginning (of change) is hard, and the middle is hard . . . but, as Moose, you have to change. The ways you’ve been doing some things doesn’t work anymore, and so what you were doing has to change. And you can’t stop now, because you haven’t arrived yet! So you hang in there.”

Ultimately, she said, the result is worth it. “Eventually, the new way becomes the old way, the change takes place and the new way becomes comfortable”—and the organization has become more efficient, more productive, more successful. She added: “You can do it! After all, you guys are Moose—you’re not mice!”