ANYTHING THAT’S NEW

In a meeting with a partner org, a leader said something interesting. She said, “Anything that’s new is going to be hard to execute at first.” 

Maybe. But not definitely. 

I’m writing more about change in the March 2nd installment, but for now, I’ll share that while change can be difficult for people, what I see most often is that the new thing was rolled out poorly, without compelling rationale, without a really clear vision for exemplary execution, with very little follow-up coaching, and almost zero accountability. And that that’s why new things are often hard to execute. But not just because they’re new. 

Yes, change can be tricky. I imagine many of you just had the new Iphone update installed. Did you love the fact that it was happening? Did you think, “Apple knows their stuff, so this update must be both helpful and necessary? Count me in, Tim Cook!” 

Or, like me, did you think, ‘My operating system is fine. Why bother with this?” Once it was installed, did you compare it over and over again with the previous system, complaining that the last one was better? 

Change can definitely be hard. New things are often hard. 

Let’s agree to make them less hard by rolling them out in a way that sets people up for success and that doesn’t let ourselves off the hook by saying that anything new is going to be hard to execute at first.