A Performance Tip for Leaders
 

The key word is "Perspective."

Leadership is about change.  Change is hard.  However, change is easier to digest when you can put it into perspective for yourself and for those you wish to influence.

I had a good lesson in this recently.  I changed all my communication tools.  New business phone.  New Blackberry.  New wireless high speed.  I even changed my contact manager!

I can frankly say that these changes have been difficult!  Each tool in a serious way failed to live up to its initial promise.  So there's the first problem - high expectations followed by lunchbag letdown.  (Does this remind you of speeches from top management to cynical employees...?)

The phone system was supposed to be able to "Press 1" and if no answer, bounce back to its own voice mail.  Persisting to the highest levels of the system's creators ultimately showed it cannot do that.  Doesn't that seem like a failing grade in voice mail 101?

The Blackberry is supposed to be able to synchronize my emails, address book, tasks list and calendar.  The calendar won't synchronize.  The problem is so difficult that it has escalated right out of my service provider to RIM itself, the maker of the Blackberry.  Along the way, I had to help them by learning how to dig out real software code by running complex tests - sort of like going into the Amazon jungle with a penknife!

High speed wireless was the biggest challenge of them all.  I live in a rural area where there are no cable TV or high speed phone lines.  I've jealously watched others zoom along with high speed (like you probably!) while I agonizingly lived with dial-up.  When high speed wireless came along, I jumped on it. 

High speed wireless is new technology.  New technology means new problems!  Between getting a weak signal to getting the router to connect with the modem, I was in la-la land for over two weeks - trying new cables, four new routers - wireless and wired, pinging my IPconfig, switching computers and finally, scouring the house for an optimal modem signal receiving location.

I put it into perspective about ten days into my techno-nightmare.  I said to my wife, "This must have been what it was like a hundred years ago when people switched from the horse to the automobile.  Your horse was always reliable, always started, always got there -eventually!  To start your car, you had to check the fuel, change the plugs, dry the distributor cap, heat the block and crank it just twenty more times! Let's not even talk about grinding the gears and blowing a tire or the engine itself!"

Yes, change is hard.  But we cannot look back.  I cannot go back to dial-up any more than I can go back to riding a horse!  In fact, the main product I sell involves technology, techno-glitches and having my clients go through a learning curve.  How can I be anything less than patient with others who are also doing their best to push me forward with promises of bigger, better and faster? 

Computers are in their early days, just as cars were in the early 1900's.  I encourage you to put your change challenges in perspective.  You'll see that everyone will digest the changes faster and make them work as best as they can.

I now invite you to read below about the exciting changes that materialized this summer in the Performance Shift Accountability System, thanks to one major client who had the patience and conviction to move from the horse to the horseless carriage in how he is managing his people.

Sincerely,

Performance Shift News!

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