Running the perfect experiment

Have you got an idea to launch or run something? A concept or possibility that’s not yet real or tangible? 

Let’s take the idea and run an experiment. You know, test some of it out. 

Simple right? Aaah no, not so simple. 

Experiments may be all cool and startup-ish but we can so fear messing up or looking bad that we don’t even attempt an experiment at all!

For all the ‘fail fast’ messages blaring at us, we can find the action of testing something still too big a step to take. 

Are we expecting the perfect experiment? 

Do we keep working tweaking reading learning and writing until we become closer to 100% sure it will work? 

Where is the experiment part then?

Experiments are wonderful for discovery, to find out. If we don’t experiment we won’t find out. No matter how much thinking we put into it. 

It’s the ideal time to try some new and different things ... to discover what happens. 

If not now, when? 

There’s a hypothesis, hunch or idea on your list there. How about donning the lab coat, firing up the Bunsen burner and getting some feedback and insights from a petite experiment? 

I will if you will. 

Ready? 

Ease is an accelerator

How easy do you make things? 
And what do they need you to make easier?

The weekly status meeting is often a summary of “here’s what going on”.  

Rather than going around the table - or the screen - hearing an update about what’s going on, why not find out what they need made easier? 

Leaders who take on the role of a facilitator - today’s leaders of ease - are focused on making things easier for their team. 

That means helping to identify and remove barriers, blocks and obstacles. 

Get to it! Find out where the sticking points are and help free them up. Release the build up, move the blockage out of there and make things easier. 

This is some of the best work a leader can do. It can be one of the most impactful, supportive and memorable things about a leader. 

It reduces friction and frustration and allows the team to build up momentum, speed and flow. 

Go now ... go make something easier. 

Is there a better way of doing this

When we’re doing something in one way, do we wonder is there a better way? Rather than finding just any old way to do a task or activity, what would make it better... better for you and your situation?

And what is ‘better’ anyway? Better happens when something is more acceptable … to us or perhaps to our customers, clients, family, colleagues or community.

It might be better because:

It’s quicker

It’s less stressful

It’s easier

It’s smoother

It uses less energy

It’s more affordable

It takes less effort

It happens faster

It makes us happier

It protects us

It extends our life

It cares for others

It is kinder, more efficient… and on and on we can go.

It’s a personal thing to identify what would make something better for you. And when focus is directed towards better, we can make decisions, change things and choose ways that will work for us.

For the better. My next book is coming soon ... ‘Better ways of thinking and working: How changing the way you do things, changes what you can do’. 

Is it really a pivot or just catching up

As we adapt to new ways of thinking, working and living, the word ‘pivot’ has gained ’traction’ 😩 cliché alert - urgh!

Is it really a pivot or are we just catching up on what needed to be done some time ago? Did we see the need, test the tech and talk about it, only to have initial hopes swamped by "too hard, too complicated, too busy - don’t have time”?

To pivot is indeed to change, rotate, shift direction.

To catch up is to work quicker, to increase your pace so you are ...at pace.

If it’s a big shift, then it is. If it’s doing what we could have started a while ago, we’re catching up. Nothing wrong with that.

In catching up we learn, experiment, gain insight and feedback. We can accelerate, speed up, adapt rapidly. As Madeline Kahn‘s ‘Eunice’ in the classic film ‘What’s up Doc?’ says, ‘Don’t over-dramatise’. There’s no benefit in making what we’re doing even more dramatic than it already is.

Overwhelm, worry, and ‘I need to do better’ live there and the dangers of perfectionism can become painfully visible. We can still do meaningful, purposeful and impactful work without the added panic that we’re also in a dramatic pivot.

How do leaders adapt

Adaptability isn’t just a switch we flick. It’s an integrated set of thinking, learning and practical behaviors that help us change. It’s a skill and capability. We can break it down and learn it.

To support leaders and their teams, we need to provide them with this capability of adaptability.

12 capabilities of adaptability are:

1. Sensemaking
2. Listening
3. Learning
4. Collaborating
5. Facilitation
6. Visualization
7. Experimentation
8. Improvisation
9. Ingenuity
10. Empathy
11. Creativity
12. Curiosity

These are the more contemporary and impactful ways of thinking and being in today’s world of work.

I’m pleased to offer my new Leadership Adaptability Program: for leadership teams in business, community, not for profit and government.

Take one capability and then take them all. Integrate them into your existing organizational development schedule to refresh and update it. Or let’s launch a new initiative together that delivers leaders the skills, techniques and practices for the new ways of work.

Adaptability is the capability.