This month’s blog series is all about leading change.
I had a boss who loved new ideas early in my career.
Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point described the path of spreading new ideas, which included the groups of ideas that spread.
- Innovators
- Early Adopters
- Early Majority
- Late Majority
- Laggards
My boss was always in category 1 or 2. He was the first person I knew with (I am about to reveal how old I am.) a laptop, Palm Pilot, and iPhone. He was the first person to tell me about Twitter. (I thought it sounded like a crazy idea. Why would anyone want to hear a two-sentence description of my thoughts on random topics?)
Because of his love for new ideas, he always found new methodologies and led change.
Sometimes, this was great, sometimes challenging, and sometimes, we should have thought through the idea more before implementing it.
But do you know why I kept following him through all the changes?
He was willing to work hard on his new initiatives.
Let me state this bluntly. If you want to lead change in your organization, you MUST be willing to do the work yourself. You can not declare a change that inconveniences others while you do business as usual.
So, as you are leading change, after you explain WHY, explain what you are doing to make this change a reality and how it is also impacting your work.
People follow examples more than words.