The list of 50 Reasons Not to Change proved to be rather comprehensive, and admittedly several of those have been heard coming out of the mouths of people I've worked with both at school and on the job. I'm certainly guilty of having said a few of those myself. However, the way I react initially strongly varies with the situation. Some of these reasons not to change just come as part of the military life, as there are always at least one or two policies that need to be followed that may defy common sense, the ever present question of manning and funding (particularly in these times as we're being called upon to do more with less), and of course considering the wishes and desires of our bosses and trying to either dance around said preferences or use them to our advantage. Having said that, while such concerns from the list of 50 reasons may be voiced, our office tends to be very good at making things work anyway. Rather than simply stopping at concerns on the funding, manning, or otherwise, we say "fair enough, how can we do this with what we have?" It's happened often enough that my initial reaction is more along the lines of "Ok, what trick are we going to pull off now?" or more often "What's the perspective of our more senior officers or senior enlisted that has more experience? What solutions do they see?"
As I've alluded to earlier, I've been guilty more than once of using these excuses myself when I hit a wall in a task or project. For all intents and purposes, I'm still a very new officer with less than three years of experience, almost half of which was used not in being an officer but being in training, then working a job that was inherently very reactionary rather than calling for action or new ideas. Frankly, I know that I tend to take policies and circumstances at face value, and creating a solution that isn't readily available or which goes outside some kind of established procedure is not my strong suit. I'm hoping that as time passes and I gain greater experience and confidence that I will be better able to seek first how I might work an issue rather than why it can't be done.
How to overcome these types of responses to change has varied some in my experience. A vast majority of the time, we're still being subject to the will of our commander or higher authority, and anytime we come back saying that something couldn't or shouldn't be done, we had to have a very good reason. In my case especially, I'd have to be able to answer not only to the commander but then at least one or two more levels of more senior officers, and that would be after trying to figure things out with at least one senior enlisted. So, admittedly it boils down to something of a "find a way or else" type of scenario, but to frame the task in a positive manner, our office generally maintains a very low tolerance of the 50 Reasons, with our organizational culture as a military unit calling for a "can do" attitude that finds or makes a way.
Regarding Seth Godin's talk tribes, I really think he's onto something with that idea. Most talks I've heard on leadership or change revolves around the idea of getting an idea out there or as some of my recent favorites have noted, stating with "why" as prescribed by author Simon Sinek, or another talk that discussed setting where things are now and where they can go. But they don't often talk about the people that follow an idea, which if I recall correctly was discussed in one of our early videos as an element of what makes change happen. When you get down to it, individuals can end up as the face of a movement but ideas only actually take flight when a significant number of people get on board to try and make it happen. Thinking from a historical perspective, the idea makes sense. The American Revolution, while largely attributed to the founding fathers, had a great deal of the footwork ride upon the common citizen that didn't care for the American Colonies being run by the British Empire. The Civil Rights movement, which did have some major figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., still had a great deal ride upon the people that took a stand to be heard. Within my own office environment, my last commander thought there was a better way to deal with the reporting and tracking of communications issues, and he rallied with his peers at our partner units that felt the same way and led them to adopt our new way of doing business. Those are examples where, as Godin put it, there was a group of people already looking for a change, and someone stood up to organize that group and make something happen. Definitely, while one person can get the idea to organize change, I think it takes a tribe to see the change through.
I can take away from this a couple of things. First and foremost, that there's actually a reasonably lengthy list of common excuses out there for why things can't change, many of which I've heard or used and all of which sound rather tacky when examined from a third party perspective. Knowing this, I would like to take this knowledge with me to be consciously aware of when one of these reasons is being used and to critically examine whether or not it's valid, and what can be done to overcome that reaction. Second though, I intend to be conscious of this idea of "tribes," and I'll see if there's any potential for application in my workplace or if there's any evidence of leveraging of tribes occurring that does in fact get change rolling.
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