A great mentor and leader taught me a lifelong principle that has served me well in my life. This is what will be the 6th principle out of 10 this week:
Principle 6 – Observe First, then Make Changes
This mentor taught me this concept after I was promoted to a leadership position. I saw him come in and take over the organization. Many others and I were excited about him coming in because we thought he would see the myriad of problems and start fixing them immediately. We kept thinking, ‘Finally, someone will notice this and change what we are doing.’
However, no changes came. A few months went by, and not a single policy, rule, or guideline was changed. It seemed to us that he was doing nothing. Then, one day, I got a phone call asking me to serve in a leadership role where I would be in frequent communication with this new leader. During our first meeting, I had the chance to ask him about the various problems that seemed so obvious.
He knew them all. He understood the problems that I described in great detail. He knew why they were a problem and even considered some possible resolutions. I was perplexed and asked him why he had not done anything yet. He looked at me and said, ‘You noticed that, did you?’ He took a moment and explained that he was going to teach me a life lesson and that if I were wise, I would take a mental note. That I did.
He had served in business and in government for most of his career. He had been in high-ranking positions, and he had been in middle management as well. He told me that there will be many times in your life when you will be asked to take control of another organization. The first few months of your initial engagement will make the difference between success and failure. The best advice I can give you is that when you come into a new environment, resist the urge to make changes. Your best path is to do nothing and observe only. When you are new, you have the opportunity to ask stupid questions, to ask people to explain what they are doing and why. This is your opportunity to learn the culture and understand why the company and its people behave the way that they do.
All organizations behave the way they do for specific reasons, we need to understand those reasons before we start making changes. Changing course too prematurely, often results in making the same exact mistakes that your predecessors did. We end up repeating the same problems and the culture learns nothing, other then a slight hiccup to pause while the new leader stumbles over the same ground as those that came before.
So this mentor taught me a valuable lesson that has proved to be critical advice over the years. Never make change for change sake, listen and observe so that you understand exactly why the culture has adopted certain practices. Once you know all this, then you can start to construct improvements and execute lasting change. I had the privilege of working with this mentor as he made his first round of changes. This was marvelous to behold. Well through, through decisions that struck at the core of the matter and helped really rally the entire organization around him. People no longer feared the new boss because they realized he was going to be wise and prudent in his decision making process.
