Long term outcomes require good planning and thoughtful execution.  Sometimes the early activities—predecessors—take agonizingly long.

I might have better strategic than tactical patience.  I learned doing big programs that both levels of patience are important.  How easy it is to forget in life what we learn in work … and vice versa!

What does this have to do with the tray of bananas in my freezer?

I misread—or maybe Target changed—the unit of measure, resulting in 29 bananas (6 bunches) being delivered, not 6 individual bananas (eaches)*.  I cut the extra ones up and froze them.  It was pretty tedious, but now I have a lot of fresh-frozen bananas I can use in smoothies.  

When I was cutting them up, I reminded myself that things sometimes take as long as they take and that’s ok. I made a point of this because my tactical patience isn’t always stellar and I want to get “tedious” things done with ASAP.

One of my self-inflicted issues last year was two painful but non-serious tendon injuries, both caused by overtraining in my enthusiasm for the gym reopening.  That’s tactical impatience.    I went too fast and now I have to go slow.  My PT reminds me: “we’re rehabbing an injury.  Not training.”   Because a part of my 100 day plan is fitness and health related, going slow to go fast is key.  This is also where a process vs. an outcome approach works well.  I can have a goal of being injury free, but it’ll take as long as it takes to heal.  I have to stick to the process, even—especially—when it’s tedious.  It won’t take longer if I am careful and don’t reinjure myself.  (Note to self:  no more work-out analogies for a while.)

Go slow to go fast doesn’t mean measure 80 times and cut once or maybe never.

It means accepting how long important foundational activities take and that the process of these activities is important.

And this is very important for work, for large programs and organizational change, for change management in particular.  Pay attention to the things that take as long as they take and have a solid process for them.

-Chris

*For data- and analytics-heads.  This is a great example of why UoM issues and conversion problems are a great place to start when an analysis or reconciliation looks waaaaay off.