All the warning lights are on!
Image credit: Mccarthy Beckan on Unsplash
Organisational change and implementing change in business don’t always follow a smooth path. You’ll have challenging discussions, project meetings that don’t seem to make progress, and occasionally, it really feels like the wheels are coming off.
The other day, while driving, every warning light on my dashboard lit up at once and a loud beeping noise started. Low tyre pressure. Brake failure. Engine fault. The whole lot. For a moment there, it was genuinely alarming.
What are the chances?
But then I slowed down and thought it through. The brakes were working fine, as I could feel them. The tyres seemed perfectly normal. And the car had just passed its MOT. So what were the chances that everything had gone catastrophically wrong at exactly the same moment?
Near zero, as it turned out. A faulty sensor had set off a whole series of loud and false warnings. One small problem was masquerading as many.
The smallest set of elements
This is Ockham's Razor in action. The 14th-century philosopher William of Ockham didn't invent the idea, but he captured it neatly: entities are not to be multiplied without necessity. Put simply, when faced with competing explanations, go with the one that requires the fewest assumptions.
Project panic
We forget this when we're stressed. A flurry of bad signals hits at once and our brains leap to worst-case scenarios. Projects stall. Plans go sideways. Everything feels like it's unravelling simultaneously. But more often than not, there's a single root cause quietly causing wrinkles across the whole system. In organisational development terms, this can have a profound impact on what you’re trying to do.
Modelling it
Before you panic, ask the simpler question: what one thing, if it were wrong, could explain most of this noise? Taking the time to look more closely at what’s really going on will help in a number of ways. Of course, you’ll find the answer to the problems that’s causing the noise. And in addition to this, if you’re trying to promote behaviour change across the organisation, this response will model a different way of meeting challenges.
Lastly, pausing a moment before looking into the issue means that you’re likely to be calmer and see things more clearly. You may find that it's just the sensor.
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