Change Navigation

This is the first in a series of posts about change leadership.

Today's executives have a great responsibility to enact change. Staying competitive in business requires implementing new technologies, improving processes, reducing costs, and enabling innovation. Yet these activities – all of which have significant change-management components to them – can be dogged with challenges.

If you want to lead your organization to achieve its goals, you need to learn how to lead change effectively. The success of your organization, and your career as an executive, depends on it.

In a recent post, we explored the value of go slow to go fast. This idea suggests that, if we slow down at the beginning of a change initiative to engage stakeholders, gain clarity on goal and target outcomes, and work through tough issues, we can speed through implementation. On the other hand, if we choose to go fast up front, we risk setting ourselves up for frustration and firefighting by neglecting beneficial relationships and issues.

We can choose our pace. Some changes need to move quickly, others slowly. This post covers two fundamental questions: When should we go slow? How slow should we go?

Ah, the satisfaction of getting things done. Like many others, I have a very long “to do” list. Nothing makes me happier than whittling down that list or knocking off the last item of the day.

But in the rush to get things done, it’s important that we take time to set ourselves up for success. Sometimes, we have to go slow to go fast.

Why Go Slow?

Fast gets things done quickly… sometimes. Slow helps ensure that we get the right things done quickly.

Say we’re leading a mission-critical, fast-track project within our company. It represents a major change in how people operate, and it’s tied to a new corporate strategy.