Shaking Things Up

Crayons
Originally uploaded by Yooper shooter

Taking a box of perfectly good crayons and shaking them up won't revolutionize your crayon box. It won't bring real change to the crayons. It won't turn the crayon box into something else. You will still have an ordinary box of crayons. The only difference is they were shook up a little. Nothing was created. Nothing really changed with the crayons themselves.

How often do you see people shake things up and call it change? They shuffle this employee here. Move this one over there. Move their office to the other side of the room. Change someone's job title here and add another position there. Is it true change? Sure, things look different, but are the results revolutionizing the the way you do business? Is it going to change the structure of your business? Is it going to improve morale? Is it changing the way people are thinking or looking at things? Is it making the vision clearer and causing people to buy in?

Government is a great example of this. They shuffle. They shift. They shake. It even looks different sometimes, but the same players and ideas that caused the inefficiencies and failures often remain. Government likes shaking the crayon box and calling it change.

Try something different with your crayon box. Try using a crayon outside the box. Throw a crayon out if it doesn't work for what you're creating. Use just a few crayons for your goals. Use many crayons for your goals. Use all the crayons if that's what it will take. Use the right crayons.

Never just shake up the box of crayons and say you've accomplished change.