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Posts tagged ‘Change’

More on Calendar Soup: One explanation of why we settle for the superficial

In an earlier post (On Serving Calendar Soup at the Leadership Luncheon, August 29, 2013), I offered up Calendar Soup–an image from a children’s book in which the pages from a calendar that show tasty ingredients are boiled into a nutrient-free stew that substitutes for the real thing–as a metaphor for some leaders’ preference for superficial “learning” over the hard work of deep change.

Thanks to finally digging into Daniel Kahneman’s recent book Thinking Fast and Slow, I now have an explanation (on page 35) for why we seem to enjoy Calendar Soup:

A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.

Another serving, anyone?

Doubt: A Best Practice in Managing Change?

It’s tempting to think that doubt is the enemy of visionary leadership and transformational change. Maybe that needs another look.

Malcolm Gladwell recently reviewed a new biography of the economist Albert O. Hirschman in The New Yorker (“The Gift of Doubt,” June 24, 2013). Hirschman was “a planner who saw virtue in the fact that nothing went as planned.” One theme of his work is the creativity that emerges–under the right circumstances–when things fail to work out as planned. As Gladwell describes it:

The entrepreneur takes risks but does not see himself as a risk-taker, because he operates under the useful delusion that what he’s [sic] attempting is not risky. Then, trapped in mid-mountain, people discover the truth–and, because it is too late to turn back, they’re forced to finish the job.

Success, in other words, comes at least sometimes from failure. Or in Nietzche’s dictum, “That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”

If, as Hirschman believed, this is a general principle–if, in other words, Murphy’s law ALWAYS applies–isn’t there a lesson here for change managers? Why should we be surprised when the plan doesn’t go well? Why should dealing with that eventuality produce a back-up or contingency plan, instead of being an essential part of the original planning? Why do we hope that, with heroic change-champions and effective cheerleading, that we will beat the odds?

While no one likes a nay-sayer, perhaps some quotient of doubt–“this may not work”; “things may go wrong”; “we may not be anticipating all the potential problems”–is essential to effective execution of change. And what if the realistic assessment of doubt and the diplomatic but direct communication of risk are as important a part of the change agent’s role as optimism, confidence, and persuasion?