Podcast Episode 36 (part 9): If It Doesn’t Work, Do Something Different

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part nine in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of the same coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 8, we talked about doing what works, and this week, in part 9, we will be talking about what to do when it doesn’t work.

We started our discussion of this pair of principles last time when we talked about the importance of figuring out what works, starting to do it, and continuing to do it. It’s been said that there is no need to reinvent the wheel, and what that means for you as a leader is that you don’t need to create a new plan and a new way of doing something every time you have to repeat the task or program. You may want to tweak it to improve it, but you don’t need to start from scratch. You find what works and do it repeatedly . . . until you find that it doesn’t work. And that’s today’s discussion.

When I left one school as the guidance counselor and assistant principal to become the head of school at another school in another state, I had lots of great ideas of what I would do. I knew that it would be my first experience as the senior leader in charge of it all. However, I had been responsible for coming up with and leading new initiatives and had overseen the summer school program in my previous place, so I felt like I had an idea of what I needed to do in this new place and how to make things happen. I had taken the time to think through and prepare a plan (see part 6 of this same series for more on that). With my plan in hand and a vision in my mind of where I was going, I had rolled up my sleeves and gone to work. Unsurprisingly, I ran into obstacles and challenges, and not everything worked the way I thought it would in my head. Some of my best ideas couldn’t even seem to get off the ground, and plans that had been communicated to me before my arrival seemed to become derailed. 

For example, the school I was coming to had a plan for constructing a new school building (they were currently renting space across town for the upper grades in a less-than-ideal learning environment), but shortly after I arrived, I could see that this plan had stalled, and wasn’t moving forward. I was left with a logistical challenge and a blow to the morale of stakeholders. It was then that I began to communicate what became my unofficial motto for the next couple of years: “If it doesn’t work, then we will do something different.”  From that point forward, every time something wasn’t working the way I wanted it to work, or wasn’t working at all, and I could sense the anxiety around me, that would be my response. I would say it with joyful and calm confidence, and then that’s what I would do. I would look for something different that I could do. In this particular example, I did not renew the lease in the building across town, and instead leased some classroom portables and put them in the parking lot of the church and school. This put all the students on one campus, which was good for everybody, but it also made people uncomfortable because of the space it took in the parking lot. The combination of the benefits and the discomfort reignited the building plan, and a year and a half later, we moved students into a new school building all on the same property.

 You see, the school had a plan for facilities, but it wasn’t working. I had a plan for growing the school, but because of the complications that came from the facility issues, it wasn’t working. So, I changed the plan and did something different, and it changed everything. Unity was strengthened, morale improved, public image also improved, movement began to happen, and momentum started to roll. What we were doing before wasn’t working, so we did something different.

That’s the point for you in your leadership. The flip side of the cliché that I referenced earlier (“You don’t need to reinvent the wheel”) is the saying that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” If something is not working, rather than continuing to do it, find out why it’s not working. Then, maybe you can simply make some necessary changes to what you were doing to get it to work, but maybe you need to do something completely different instead.

Here’s what you need to know. Don’t change something just for the sake of change, or because you think you know better even though you don’t have any data to support your idea. But if what you are doing didn’t work, is no longer working, or has never worked, it’s ok to scrap it and do something different. Don’t exercise insanity. Rather, step back onto the balcony to reassess the big picture, then zoom back in to make changes (another pair of principles we talked about in parts 4 and 5 of this series). Then, make changes or start over.

The bottom line is that you need to do what works, so if something is working, don’t change it (but make sure you evaluate it periodically to ensure that it is continuing to work the way that it should). However if, or when, it is not working, the best answer may simply be . . . do something different.