How To Drive Change
Finding the will to effect intent into action is difficult. The philosophy that works for me is: protracted belief, thought and action.
The best approaches to change are highly iterative and prolonged. You should act on what you believe, and you should believe in what you have substantiated with thought. If you are not in this for the long haul it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to change anything.
Take a multi-pronged approach in which you prioritize and set goals first for yourself and then others. You cannot hope to instil anything into others that you can’t yourself. To paraphrase Dee Hock, ex-CEO of Visa, at any one point we are all leading and following yet when asked to think about what leadership is most mistakenly direct their thoughts to the leadership of subordinates. Instead, our most important responsibility is to: manage self, manage those that have authority over us, and manage our peers [1]. Managing subordinates should be of lesser importance because in an information economy they should be leading themselves.
Action is the final, most important step. It’s difficult because few have the courage to take responsibility for it and almost all look for validation from above when they should look within themselves. Lastly, I will leave you with a quote that I admire:
“Be heroic. You personally own the entire project. Do whatever it takes. Most projects have not only technical bottlenecks but political bottlenecks. Forget about the domain of the barriers or whether they are in your job description: overcome all barriers in your way; and be a friend and ally to everyone: shower all with your […] expertise.” [2]
