Tom Peters has a great post on his blog, “The Right Plan Is to Have No Plan” which discusses two belief systems adopted by leaders seeking to initiate change, that of planners who seek to impose top down solutions, who Tom says “more or less believe that the plan is the thing—and that the messy process of implementation on the ground will take care of itself if The Plan is ‘right.’” and searchers who adapt to the adapt to the local context and culture and implement change from the bottom up. Tom quotes William Easterly the author of, “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”, discussing the differences between planners and searchers…

“In foreign aid, Planners announce good intentions but don’t motivate anyone to carry them out; Searchers find things that work and get some reward. Planners raise expectations but take no responsibility for meeting them; Searchers accept responsibility for their actions. Planners determine what to supply; Searchers find out what is in demand. Planners apply global blueprints; Searchers adapt to local conditions. Planners at the top lack knowledge of the bottom; Searchers find out what the reality is at the bottom. … A Planner thinks he already knows the answers; he thinks of poverty as a technical engineering problem that his answers will solve. A Searcher admits he doesn’t know the answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors; a Searcher hopes to find answers to individual problems only by trial and error experimentation. A Planner believes outsiders know enough to impose solutions; a Searcher believes only insiders have enough knowledge to find solutions, and that most solutions must be homegrown.”

This is central to a philosophy of small wins… An approach to change the advocates looking for making small wins that have the potential to bring about huge changes. Looking for what’s working on the ground and then building of those proven successes…

“Somewhere in your organization, groups of people are already doing things differently and better. To create lasting change, find these areas of positive deviance and fan the flames.” — Richard Pascale & Jerry Sternin, “Your Company’s Secret Change Agents,” Harvard Business Review

“We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were omissions we didn’t think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today. While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we’re already on prototype version #5. By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version #10. It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan—for months.” — Bloomberg by Bloomberg, Mike Bloomberg’s business saga

Successful leadership requires a solid underpinning philosophy, a purpose and a bias towards getting things done.. that is a focus on execution. A drive towards creating small wins, informed by what’s already working, creates change. Small change, builds..  creating momentum and momentum brings about significant change…

Related posts:

1. Agility Means Simple Things Done Well, Not Complex Things Done Fast

Creating agile organisations and teams are essential to keep pace with business today. Michael Hugos has a great post on agility where he makes the following point:

“Experience shows me (again and again) that agility is not about working fast but about finding elegantly simple solutions to business problems. You’ll know you’ve found an elegantly simple solution when… it solves their most important and immediate problems…  because people can’t find these simple solutions, they mistakenly claim that agility itself doesn’t work. They come to this conclusion because they attempt to be agile by cramming complex solutions into short development cycles through working harder, longer, and faster….

An elegantly simple solution (a robust 80% solution) doesn’t do everything (there isn’t time for that), just the most important things….”

We spend too much time complicating our lives by trying to do too much, too fast! There seems to never be enough time to do something correctly, but always enough time to do it over again! Given to complexity of managing business, we’re prone to think that complex solutions, are better solutions. Instead we need to focus on implementing good enough solutions, solutions that bring about small wins. Small wins, if continually applied, in a thoughtful and strategic manner, quickly add up to significant results. Small wins are more manageable and have less of an impact if they fail. Seeking big wins are extremely difficult, prone to failure and require significant political will! Focus on the small wins…. simple things done well… repeatedly provide true competitive advantage.

Related posts:

1. Study Recommends Sleeping on Complex Decisions
2. Groups perform better than the best individual at solving complex problems
3. Have you defined what success means for you?