The Early Win and Its Trap
An early result buys the credibility to attempt the difficult thing. It becomes a trap when the pursuit of demonstrable progress starts selecting which problems the…
Read →Idaho leadership
Leadership Lessons
Practical leadership lessons from experienced Idahoans across the state's industries, institutions, and communities — guidance you can apply in your own work.
Sequencing
The same set of changes succeeds or fails depending on the order. Sequence determines who has to move before the evidence arrives, and that is the…
Read →Changing What You Should Have Left Alone
Some inefficiencies are load-bearing. A practice with no visible purpose has usually survived because it was solving something, and the cost of removing it appears months…
Read →The Announcement Fallacy
Communicating a change is not making one. The announcement is the cheapest part and it feels like the hardest, which is why leaders reliably mistake it…
Read →Change Fatigue
The fifth initiative fails on arrival because of what happened to the first four. People are not tired of change; they have learned that waiting is…
Read →Resistance Is Usually Information
Most of what gets labelled resistance is an accurate objection from somebody closer to the work. The label is attractive because it converts a substantive problem…
Read →The Month-Four Collapse
Every change programme has a point where the initial energy is spent and the results have not arrived. It is predictable, it is survivable, and almost…
Read →What Organizations Actually Learn
Findings that require a permanent change in somebody's behaviour do not survive. Findings encoded into a form, a threshold, or a scheduled event survive without anybody…
Read →Rebuilding Trust
Trust returns through accumulated small instances of doing what you said, on a timeline you do not control. Announcements do not accelerate it and reliably set…
Read →Accountability Without Scapegoating
Locating a person ends the inquiry, which is precisely what makes it attractive. The test is whether a competent replacement in the same system would have…
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