Change Management through Mass media

To survive in our fast-developing world and adapt to ever-changing technology, we have to be willing to change. Life itself is about change, continually evolving for adaptation. However, though nature has its laws to ensure the survival of the fittest, man’s life-span cannot wait that long! We change as a natural process, as we grow from infants to adolescence, to adulthood and old age. With consciousness and free will, man can give this change, a direction. It is, through conscious decisión-making, that we make of ‘change’, a ‘transformation’.

Given our multi-tiered nature, there are physical, emotional, rational and transpersonal (spiritual) factors involved in change. To control the way we change we must first become aware of these  multi-variate agents , as we play out our roles as individuals, as couples, as families, as communities and as society as a whole. Televised ‘reality shows’ are one way of associating ‘real-life’ with our own reality, identifying what we see with what we are living. It allows us to see in others, what we sometimes fail to see in ourselves. The process of unfolding from the safety of our living-room, introjecting awareness and projecting what we feel, on to what we see, is the first step towards developing consciousness through self-awareness and self-observation.
Identifying self in others as they live out our same life-situations, is the basic principle that sustains the television program “Hermosa Esperanza”, as it follows five reality-shows unfolding everyday-life in five different families, representing life in lower and middle class, Mexico City. The synergy between TELEVISA’s state of the art technology and Nestlé’s desire to change harmful eating habits among the Mexican population, make this program one of its kind. Its impact on behavioral change follows strategic steps in change-management, bridging the gap between the living condition AS IS, and change patterns that will determine conditions TO BE. Thus, mass media becomes an invaluable tool for change to become conscious, and transform our immediate reality.
Basic steps include:
1.       Develop self-awareness to observe yourself acting and reacting in daily life.
2.       Identify a problem affecting you.
3.       Pin-point  a direct cause.
4.       Set your target for change.
5.       Analyze the steps required for it.
6.       Decide to change.
7.       Commit to self-discipline.
8.       Be constant.
9.       Be willing to sacrifice and let go of ‘who you were, to give way to who you will ‘become’.
10.   Trust and open up to unforeseen novel conditions.
These basic principles set the guidelines followed during the pilot transmission of the one-hour  reality- show “Hermosa Esperanza”, transmitted weekly prime time, throughout Mexico. There is no script but life itself; nothing to hold on to except the hope for change; nothing to move you but the will to say YES to change.