It is fascinating to watch how people today react to change. I guess it is natural to resist it because, after all, there are things that often get worse along with those that get better.
I remember arguing with people that staking trees to get them to grow straight had parallels in life … if you can start with a very young plant, it doesn’t take a lot of strain to get keep the plant growing straight. However, the failure to correct a young tree makes correction later much more expensive.
In fact, if the tree is mature, it is going to take a whopping amount of strain to straighten it out, and at some point, you might even have to admit the tree has to go. Take it down, convert it to lumber, etc., and then plant a new one. It is simply easier.
Similarly, people working with elephants have learned that if you chain them to a stake when they are small and can’t pull away from that stake, they learn not to try. So as mature elephants who could easily pull the stake, they remain chained because they have not tried to pull away since their youth.
One of my favorite people was Joe Collier, the Chief Marketing Officer at Florida Power and Light who left there to become CEO of Central Maine Power. He always reminded me that “it was easier to change people than to change people. I love that … but you must have known Joe to know what he meant by it. It was all about the difficulty of correcting an adult in life … a low percentage task to say the least.
People in real life who make decisions like this generally get a bad name as they are doing what they believe needs to be done. The phrases in the title of this blog are descriptions often attributed to them. Their methods at times seem crude: wrecking balls. Their tactics cause lots of things to appear broken: Bulls in a China Shop. Their diplomacy and grace seem conspicuously absent: Blunt Instruments.
Yet, they get the job done and do it more quickly and at lower costs than the “kind and gentle” business models so many today believe are appropriate. Leadership today is being told to use consensus … which results in the gravitation to the mean … which means that nothing truly revolutionary can ever come out of that. Worse yet, it discourages truly ingenious solutions to situations.
Just like sausage, it isn’t pretty to watch things like this made in real life. We must relinquish our desire to think we are in control and give leaders time to lead. Our news cycle and cynical tendencies to ask an endless stream of “why” questions that can’t be answered with adequate assurances should have taught us to trust more … not less.
I grew up under the leadership of Admiral Rickover who singlehandedly built our nuclear navy from the ground up. He was not a nice person. He was arrogant beyond measure. He was ruthless during his interviews and legendary in the stories told about him. He got the job done. We now have a nuclear navy.
He surrounded himself with the smartest people on the planet and I must say working for them was daunting. We are talking scary smart. But nobody complained. They knew what the goal was, and they fell in line pushing for that goal. And they did it.
Leadership is a lonely place because it must be for it to be effective. Consensus is comforting, but delusional. Give leaders time before thinking you are so smart.
I’ve always found it interesting and somewhat perplexing how challenging it is for people to embrace change. The price of eggs, gas, food, etc always is changing. When athletes/teams win championships, and after the celebration ends, they (team leadership) always asks themselves “what do we need to change in order to get back to another championship?”
To become a better athlete/team one must learn how to change and embrace and adapt accordingly, otherwise you compromise your ability and you risk positive outcomes!