What’s the least you can do?
The Change Question: What’s the least you can do?
When we teach practical coaching skills at Box of Crayons, our three mantras are: Be Lazy, Be Curious, Be Often.
They’re deliberately provocative, because they often upend what people think coaching “should” be.
I particularly like the “be lazy” one. I suspect its inspiration started with that delightful quote from George Bernard Shaw:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Which led me to Bill Gates:
I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
Which got me to that classic “2 x 2” with lazy/not lazy on one axis, and smart/not smart on the other.
I suspect many change leaders are not lazy and smart. And I’d like you, yes you, to get a little lazier.
What’s tricky is, to do that well, you may need to get a little smarter and a little braver as well.
You’ll need to step back and see the system as messy, complex, emerging.
You’ll need to do the hard analysis, so you can take your best guess at the intervention that will make the most difference.
You’ll have to tell people no, and people rarely like to be told no.
You’ll have to let things keep failing, and bear people’s disgruntledness.
You’ll have to do less, but do it better. Commit ferociously to something.
You’ll have to manage your own anxieties about the ambiguities.
It’s irritating, really. Being lazy and doing less seems very appealing, but it might just take more work after all.
Want to go deeper? You’ll enjoy my conversation with Dan Heath on the Change Signal pod. We talk leverage points and committing resources.
Pod Wisdom: Invite them in
Cassandra Worthy, from the new Change Signal episode "Can Feelings Fast-Track Your Transformation?":
"When we leave emotion at the door of business, we leave humanity at the door of business. And we can't afford to do that, if we want to remain relevant, competitive, thrive and win. That is the change myth that drives me into action and irritates me the most. The idea that feelings and inviting feelings into the conversation is going to slow us down and that we don't have time for it.”
Listen to the full episode with Cassandra Worthy now
Cassandra Worthy is a renowned Change Management expert, speaker, and author of Change Enthusiasm: How to Harness the Power of Emotion for Leadership and Success.
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The Last Word
"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge."
~ Audre Lorde
