You Are Trying Too Hard

You are doing too much.  

Taking on far more than you need to. 

Sometimes the discipline of work is patience, rather than vigorous activity. We all need to learn how to do the right things at the right time. An accumulation of small wins can be far more important than chasing that one huge success. 

In my work with leaders and teams who are driving innovation or transformational change; the potential success of their initiatives is unknown. Such levels of uncertainty can lead to leaders and teams doing too much. 

There appears to be a belief that a lot of activity can reduce some of the uncertainty. But any amount of activity doesn’t reduce uncertainty. We have to be engaged in the right type of activity. 

In fact, doing the wrong things at the wrong time can introduce further complexity in an already complex situation. Leading to even more frenetic activity. 

What if we don’t have to try as hard as we do? Perhaps we can relax a little and take a more balanced approach to the work we are doing.  

Three Signs That You Are Trying Too Hard 

There are various examples of leaders and teams doing too much. The three examples below come from my own experience. As you read them, think about examples from your own experience. 

1. Trying To Pick The Winning Ideas On Day One: Leaders ask for long business cases with spreadsheets to improve their confidence in their decisions. But when it comes to breakthrough ideas, such levels  of confidence are impossible to achieve on day one. Leaders can’t pick the winning ideas. They can only provide the context in which the best ideas emerge.  
2. Trying To Implement Transformation Across The Company At Once: Driving transformational change is a complex initiative with several unknown variables. Doing it all at once can easily start a hundred fires in different parts of the organization. This can result in negative evaluations of the changes we are trying to make and the ultimate failure of the initiative. 
3. Building An Entire Product Without Customer Feedback: This is driven by the wrong belief that you can’t show customers unfinished products. Teams always feel that they have to put their best foot forward. The problem is that teams learn too late that they have built the wrong thing. 
   

As you can see across the three examples, leaders and teams are doing too much. Doing much more than they need to, given where they are on their journey. 

Take Baby Steps

Now, there is also the possibility that you can do too little. Uncertainty can lead you to freeze and do nothing at all. I have worked with leaders and teams who ultimately made the choice to do nothing. 

Doing too much versus doing too little. How do we solve this conundrum?

The solution is to take baby steps. 

1. When investing is innovation, make small bets across a number of ideas. Allow those teams to test their business ideas in the market. Over time, increase your investments, but only in those ideas that are showing traction. 
2. When driving transformational change, start small. Work with those that already buy-in what you are trying to do.  Get some early wins and use that momentum to attract others to your movement. 
3. When building products and services, test some hypotheses as you go.  Learn about customers, value propositions, pricing and channels to market before doubling down. 

Working with uncertainty is not easy. In fact, it is some of the hardest work you can do. It is mentally and emotionally challenging. But if you do too much at the wrong time, the difficulty only compounds. 

You have to embrace the notion that you can work hard, without doing too much. 

The wisdom is in knowing the right things to do at the right time.