We all Know Better

... or do we?

This week I would like to challenge us all to think about our own egos, emotional intelligence and beliefs around following a process others have successfully previously adopted.

Here in the UK nationally we always seem to ‘need’ to find our ‘own way’ of doing things, we don’t seem to like to accept that others are as good, or perhaps even better, then us – yes we will have a look at what others do, but then, regardless of how successful that model has been for them, we immediately want to change it rather than test it ‘as is’ and then evolve it.

I have witnessed this replicated in many business situations, rather than first the original methodology as a trial and later adapting and deploying it as we find appropriate and based upon feedback received, many business owners and managers will initially adjust it first, then run it and find it works less well then anticipated and then chuck out the whole idea – wasting their resources and also a previously proven concept!

When we are adopting something new, that has been successful tried by others, we should of course scale the methodology to suit our own needs however testing the original concept with a core group of ‘customers’ or contacts before adapting it would be far less wasteful all round.

So why is it we always feel the need to change a potentially proven system or process rather than work within it? I believe it is an emotional decision based upon staying within our own comfort zones.

We all know how we feel most comfortable when it comes to working and anything that stretches us beyond that we will seek to change or even completely avoid. So if we come across elements of the methodology that we are looking at and, either consciously or sub consciously, think I really don’t want to do then we will amend the method to remove that element, or at least reduce the amount of it we are required to undertake and emotionally based decision may well remove impact negatively upon the main reason the original concept worked so well with the consequent reduced level of outcomes!

Thus when we find a methodology we feel we want to bring into our businesses or lives I would like to think we can all sit down and objectively review the various elements that make it up.  We can consider which of these elements we don’t really feel we ‘want’ to do or that we will ‘least enjoy’ doing and then, by writing this all down we can assess the likely impact on the process as a whole.

We can now, better understand the likely effect of reducing, or removing them and theses parts of the methodology and make the informed, factual decision’ rather than making the original ‘emotional decision’.

I would love to hear if you have ever experienced the above in any way and what the outcomes were for you, and/or your business, from that scenario - so please do leave a comment and thank you for stopping by and reading this weeks Blog.