Change Some Things

In January, I attended a music competition with my daughters. They have both competed in this festival for several years, and I have attended the event every year that they have competed.

I have noticed something interesting about this competition: they are nearly always behind schedule within about two hours of the start. As the competitors and their accompanists move from room to room to perform for the judges, the meticulously prepared schedule that has room and time assignments on it gradually becomes just a list of whose next to perform
with little or no regard to the actual time of day. Competitors wait for judges. Judges wait for competitors. Competitors and judges wait for accompanists. The waiting goes on and on. As near as I can tell, the competition always ends 1-2 hours later than scheduled. From a practical standpoint, the schedule is meaningless.

As my wife and I moved from one judging room to the next at the most recent competition, I asked my wife a rhetorical question: “If the schedule is always behind, why don't the organizers find a better way to schedule the time slots or acknowledge that they can't get all of the competitors through the process in the short amount of time they allow?”

That rhetorical question then reminded me of the Albert Einstein quote that “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.”

The point of this story is not to criticize the organizers. Frankly, they do an amazing job coordinating the schedules of hundreds of people in a one-day event. The point is my recognition (again) that I have to change my thinking and my behaviors to get different results.

From that rhetorical question to my wife, I then began to think about my business, my communications, my interactions, and my relationships. I began to wonder: “Where am I doing the same things over and over again with poor results and not taking the action to change?” Thus, the redesign of my newsletter and blog. I am making the move to change some things that are not yielding the results for me, or for anyone else, that I want.

Do you want to build relationship and results momentum with your team? Do you want to grow as a leader, as a communicator, or as a team member? If you do, I encourage you to question yourself. What are you doing or saying that consistently does not give you the results you want? Find that thing and change it. Make an action plan. Change it and you will start to build momentum.