Change initiatives are seen as a path to salvation for those who see their relevance fading.
“Give ‘em a shot of innovation to liven things up and keep us on life support for another budget cycle!”
However, change does not happen when people and resources are fully engaged.
The most shocking thing I learned in my undergraduate macroeconomics class was that economists had precisely determined the ideal unemployment rate for maximum economic growth. The main idea there: if you will be hiring someone for a new position to be responsible for growth, that certain someone needs to be available for hire, rather than engaged somewhere else.
It’s the same with change. Change is a kind of growth. If someone will be doing something different with their time or energy, then someone needs to make a chunk of time or energy available for that.
And because learning and unlearning always take more than you think they will, the bigger the change, the bigger the amount of slack time and energy needs to be made available for change.
If the goal is remaining relevant, and if it’s true that change will feed relevance, then the most important thing we can do in the face of change is to stop doing so much. Making room for change will be the most important thing you can do to bring it.
The “stop doing” list is just as important as the “start doing” list.
