Hello Analyst, Engineer, Change Agent or whatever we call ourselves now days.
You’ve been assigned a project that is about change. So what’s your angle going to be?
Here’s what your angle shouldn’t be. Your job is not to attend a meeting or two and then head off into the wilderness and return with the 10 commandments. Your job is to forge a path to the solution. This is especially important for young analysts to learn. Do not go back to your cube after gathering a few facts and drum up a solution and then present this back to your customer. Epic fail. You’ve just lost your audience.
Listen to your audience. Find out where their own personal frustrations are not just the frustrations of the process. We engineers are fond of saying “it’s the process not the people,” which is rather cold way of saying don’t blame the people. But while we don’t want to blame, the secret to success is the people.
It’s not your job to have a brilliant answer for everything. Your job is to have insight. Your job is to navigate through the morass to a solution. You need to navigate everybody to the solution or almost everyone. If you end up there alone, no matter how brilliant the plan, the plan will fail.
Sometimes you will have to compromise. I know that’s hard for smart people with lots of experience to accept. Win the war not the battle. Compromise. Adjust the path.
I’d love to be a dictator and tell everyone what to do, but you don’t always get to do that. If you are getting significant push back on a project point, ask yourself if you can concede that point and not jeopardize the plan. Digging your heels in like a donkey just like the person across from you will get you gridlock.
Go around it or let it be. The process is never going to be a straight path. Learn to be comfortable in tacking your way across the ocean.
Small bumps in the road often get swept up later in the maelstrom of change anyway. Lose the battle not the war. I am always fond of saying “it’s not always worth it to be right.”
Learn to understand the power of conceding a point. Your audience will appreciate it. Good will is powerful. More powerful than you think.
Once More Unto the Change 