Corporate Journey

Sometimes in the morning I realized that sometimes I can find victory in the effort, although I was sick in the morning... so that was my theme for that day, so here are my victories... Collateral change management, and that's when it hit me. Of course I thought team performance was perfect. I'd created it. I would be more than happy to review it.

Here's what I realized:

- My perfect is not other people perfect.

- They don't have a perfect. In fact, there is no they. There is an individual, who wants something a little different.

- The more perfect I think it is, the less willing I'll be to let anyone change it.

- The only way to make it useful to everyone is to allow each person to change it to suit him or herself.

- The only way people will use it is if they do change it in some way.

- The only way I will encourage them to change it and make it their own is if I make it imperfect.

And I changed everything to make it half right, half finished. It wasn't pretty, but it was usable. I always asked the same question:

Why won't this work for me?

One by one I dealt with all the issues people saw as obstacles. One by one they made their own changes. One by one they took ownership for the system and became accountable for using it. Is this only a large-scale change effort idea? I don't think so. It's useful whenever I need someone else to take ownership for something. Just get it half right.

Here's the hard part: When someone changes my plan, I might think the new approach will be less effective. Resist the temptation to explain why my way is better. Just smile and say Great. The drive, motivation, and accountability that person will gain from running with its own idea will be well worth it.

Imperfectly, that is me.