The greatest enemies of real change are impatience and her cousin distraction.
Unfortunately these two both look and sound similar so are often mixed up.
Impatience is really important to overcome barriers and break down stubborn resistance, it brings dissatisfaction with status quo, plus the drive to make change as quickly as possible. When this is translated into “just go faster” it can actually stop change…
How can “go fast” end up as “stop”?
Put simply – when “go slow” is viewed as failure.
When slow is seen as failure the things which are slow will not get done, regardless of whether they are important or not.i Your people don’t want to fail, so what you define as failure is important.
This “slow is bad” can reward Distraction. Distraction takes us off the track we’ve agreed to follow onto another. Trying a new way to solve a problem is not distraction, choosing a different problem is.
If speed is what is rewarded, an interesting dynamic can develop within a team where members of a team quickly sense the time threshold of their leader and reject any actions that will exceed it – so the best solution won’t even be considered if it’s “too slow”.
“Trying a new way to solve a problem is not distraction, choosing a different problem is…”
It’s in such teams where Distraction is rewarded. When the fast answers don’t get results, or have partially solved a big problem, focus is switched to a new problem, which again is tackled with high speed and energy. Speed is maintained but progress isn’t.
Poor leaders allow this to happen and even reward it. Good leaders, especially senior leaders, learn to balance speed with progress. They take a long term view.
As we complete our series on “Strategic Plans” the message is – whatever your Target, if you don’t stick to it you don’t have a strategy.
Of course speed is important, but in the real world there are many big complex problems which take time, and patience, and likely multiple failures, to solve.
The problem with changing track isn’t that a new idea mightn’t have worth, but that leaders need to respect the people who have to do the real work.
Implementing real change in the real world is always hard work whilst coming up with new ideas is easy. Distraction from a set path might excite somebody at the top but it can waste time and energy already spent, also disrespect and demotivate those people who have invested in the current plan. Those same people are usually your key change drivers.
As a leader your responsibility is to ensure that discipline and routines are part of the culture of your team, and that distractions are not allowed to randomly take the team away from the Target, waste valuable time already spent, or cover up for non-achievement.
Almost everything of value in this world took time to create. A team that knows when to be patient, and when not, will succeed.
How hard is it to make you change track?
How often do you set new objectives?
How much of your Plans require long term work and patience?
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