2023-02-16
There’s a lot of nuggets of truth in this post. Worth the read if you’re into (engineering) organizational leadership & health.
The reason most written strategies don’t apply is because they’re actually visions of how things could ideally work, rather than accurate descriptions of how things work today. This means they don’t help you plot a course through today’s challenges to the desired state.
I’ve been encountering this in multiple spheres. Changes in habits are necessary as an organizations grow. Changes in individual habits are slow. Incremental adaptations are the basis of transformation on all horizons. Writing things down should be mostly an act of documentation. Maybe 5% of a document should be testing out a mutation that you’d like to be true.
Once you’ve documented them, discussions will happen more frequently, which will create a persistent pull towards improvement. It’s better to go slowly than to avoid starting altogether.
This also matches my experience. Action begins action. Documentation unearths differences. The key is making sure everyone understand that understanding and clarity is the goal. Most documents are editable. Most decisions are reverisble. And most decisions are small bets. One foot in front of the other makes for a nice walk in the park.