Logistics Management

Darn - Duf'ed it again.......
December 14, 2007

Changing a room is easy. You can paint the walls a different color. Slide on down to IKEA and pick out new rugs, one of those cool chairs, a new bookshelf perhaps. Throw a wide screen TV up on the wall. Add a pool table and a nice bar stocked with your favorite beverages. There you go, just the way you want it.

Now, change the room and make not only you, but the wife and kids happy. Ahem, now a tad bit more difficult, isn’t it. Your wife did not like the paint color. The rug is ugly. Where are “we” going to sit? There aren’t any juice boxes in the bar for the 5 year old. Pool table? Oh, and the book shelf is too high. And if your kids are like mine, you need to make sure there is a proper mix of tank engine Thomas and Barbie in the room, along with the box for the toys.

To avoid the hardship, before you did anything, like any good change agent you told the rest of the team that you wanted to change the room, right? I bet the next question you got from them was “Why?” (go see the last blog entry). Gamely you answered that it was to make the room better.

And your wife and kids looked at you with doubt.

Doubt is the first bump in the road of change, and it is a natural part of the process. Doubt is where people look at the wild-eyed agent of change and question what the “crazy” one is speaking about. When you are talking about change, do the people that you want involved cock their heads to the side, kind of like the dog that hears a new sound for the first time? That is the first expression of Doubt.

If Doubt is the first bump, the big pothole is Uncertainty. If the doubt bump is not addressed, and addressed quickly, your change partners will become uncertain of you veracity, your desire, your capability. The uncertainty grew, and started to sound a bit hostile. The uncertainty turned into Fear.

Unaddressed or unattended Doubt, leads to Uncertainty.

Ignore or underestimate the Uncertainty, and before long you discover that you lit a bonfire of Fear.

And all you wanted was a place to watch the game.

(Next – Now you DUF’ed it. Fix it with FUD)

Posted by on December 14, 2007 | Comments (0)