Stop! Don’t Jump Into those Organizational Changes.

Are you prone to jumping full belly-flop into any change no matter how risky the outcome? Stop and consider your approach before charging into organizational change.

I grew up swimming in family and neighborhood outside pools during the spring and summer months. It was the best feeling just floating in the cool water after a scorching hot day in the brutal Florida sun. You knew that you’d be in pain from the sunburns but in those moments you just watched your fingers shrivel into sponges that would make SpongeBob jealous.

But 1 silent fear always took hold of me.

Getting into the pool for the first time.

The first pool entry will always tear down any shield of masculinity from me and my friends. Dipping your toes into the water only made it worse. You never knew if the pool was a nice 70 degrees or in a “I hate you mood” of 25 degrees. You only had one choice. Squash your fears because your friends were watching and belly flop straight into the pool.

Ultimately, you’ll freeze and at some point deal with it or be happy with the results. Either way, you aren’t getting out of the pool.

This works for 12 year old kids in a brutally hot summer day..

Simmer down from jumping into any big change.

but its just a bad analogy for much anything practical.

Step into the pool when introducing change into your teams. You may feel ready to throw every last thing you are working on into the the theoretical (or possibly very real) exploding volcano “Mt. ImAboutToPunchYourThroat” but stop.

You probably shouldn’t do that.

(probably being the em-phas-is)

Powerful teams are built from continuous resilience to learn and grow in the face of difficult struggle. They first move forward and make incremental changes before considering doing a full about face.

Instead of jumping with all the weight of 100 elephants into change, a better approach is to pull your team towards improvement through small and consistent wins. Use the confidence gained from the previous step to make a bigger leap forward into the desired result.

Powerfully effective change requires patience.

Let’s be honest. patience sucks. With valid reason I admit. If time is the only resource that you can’t get back, then patience feels like an enemy to the Precious.

But, alas, patience must be practiced to implement powerful changes.

Until robots take over, we must spend the valuable currency of time through patience in order to feel the positive results from effort given today.

ya, it kinda sucks.. but its true as of today since my robot self isn’t typing this.

Listen for Both Verbal and Nonverbal Feedback Throughout the Process From your team.

The trust of your team is your most important asset. They must know you will not introduce distractions that will guide them into directions leading them nowhere. Jumping into new pools every couple of months because you feel led will erode that trust.

You don’t want to do that.

Eric Reiss penned the book, The Lean Startup. In it, he shared the knowledge he gained from implementing the Lean strategies developed at Toyota decades ago. One of the core principles of the Lean methodologies is to stop and listen for feedback. What you hear should lead you. Not what you see.

The same rings true for introducing changes into your teams. You must let feedback guide you. Listen to what others are saying with their words and their actions. If your team is struggling to keep up then slow down the change so they can catch up.

And celebrate when everyone overcomes and sees the value of their effort.

Adjust the velocity that you introduce change but don’t ever fully stop.

Change is tough. Change is necessary. Change is good. Change is tiring. All of this is true and will provide ample reasons to want to stop the process of consistently making continuous growth in your teams.

But don’t do it.. Don’t stop introducing tiny bits of change.

Complacency is like marijuana. You just end up daydreaming whether or not Tupac is your neighbor.

Mix up how fast and much change to introduce, but always continue introducing small changes into your teams. You can use the cliche to think of it as a muscle. It needs to be worked out to look good for summer.

Jumping straight into a pool of change may feel enticing but be careful. You may just become a scared 12 year old boy too afraid to get into any pool.

You will never get anywhere whenever you are continuously diving into the freezing waters of change and then running to cower by the warm fire in the house.

Step into the water then swim from the shallow to the deep before you make it to the other side.

This is the smart way to grow a powerfully effective team that trusts one another and fosters a value of excellence. They are built on trust and confidence gained through the resilience from continuous improvement gained over time.