Should Happens

by Matt Monge

You can blend in, or you can be OK with being different. It’s pretty difficult to have it both ways.

Not that people and organizations won’t try.

It’s understandable too. Lots of folks are dying to tell you and any other organization what you should do.

Within the friendly confines of a team meeting, it’s easy to say you’re going to do this or that bold thing. It’s not nearly as difficult for a group of executives or managers to saythey’re going to take a risk and do something different than it is for them to actually do that different thing. And the degree of difficulty is ratcheted up even another notch or twelve when the feedback on that something different isn’t 100% positive.

(Weird how suddenly that’s the standard when folks start to get nervous and want an out. When else is 100% the standard for success? We wouldn’t be able to do anything! But I digress…)

When a person or organization does something different — something outside the norm — you can almost be certain they’re going to catch some sort of flack, and often a lot of flack. Sometimes it’s from well-meaning folks; other times it’ll be from people who are taking the opportunity to take a shot at you. Kind of goes with the territory though, right? You want the feedback either way, or at least you should. Doesn’t mean they’re right; but they’re not necessarily wrong just because they’re acting like donkeys. (And you might also double check to be sure that it’s not you being the aforementioned donkey. We all end up doing that more often than we’d care to admit. At least I do.)

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