Leadership Realities (Part III)

OK, last one of the night. Leadership Realities (Part III) - Too Much Inertia. (I don't really have much insight into Mr. Peter's first point about executives being rubber stamps).

Inertia is the resistance to change (you might remember this from your high school physics classes).

In the context of organizations, it's exactly the same thing. As organizations grow the typically institute best practices, standard operating procedures, and other "Our way of doing things". These are usually good. They make life more stable and dependable. Change is scary and takes away people's sense of security. People don't like change. (OKOK I know this is debatable and there is this whole thing called 'Change Management' but you get the point of the picture I am trying to paint).

But sometimes an organization needs change. Sometimes the people change. Sometimes the environment changes. Improvements are change. The problem with inertia is that sometimes it kills a necessary change at the expense of the life of the organization.

History is littered with the stories of organizations, groups, companies, and even governments that died because they didn't change with the times.

So what can you do as a Youngleader to resist inertia? A lot of things:

• Learn to listen - This is an obvious one and I've talked about listening numerous times...
• Check your ego at the door - I talked about this in the post above. You can't shoot the messenger, and you need to proactively seek out areas for improvement. Everyone can improve themselves somewhere.
  
• "Challenge the Reigning Paradigm" - I totally didn't want to say "Think outside of the box" because well... that has been done to death and we need to be thinking about what's next. No but seriously... you always need to be thinking "Why?". Why are we doing things this way? Why can't this work better? Why don't we look at things from this perspective?
  

If this all is sounding like a re-hash of the Toyota success story. Maybe it is. They beat corporate inertia through the practice of continual change and improvement. Yes they are a tough act to follow, but the rewards are worth the effort especially when the current environment is "Change or die".

Anyway, lots more to come in the near future. As always comments are requested and appreciated!

-Jason