She was consider among Napoléon
’s major opponents and spent much of her Band Database life in exile. When I came across Madame de Stael’s quote, I was struck by the genius of it. “Progress in spirals” just seems like such an accurate description of many initiatives undertaken in business today. Often the changes we must deal with are driven by events, projects, or initiatives that require major alterations to infrastructure, process, procure, culture, and technology.
—MADAME DE STAEL The intention
of these initiatives is typically to make some I agree with their thesis kind of “progress.” We look to produce results that improve market share, profitability, margins, quality, the customer experience, efficiency, sales … the list goes on and on. The challenge I see often is that the expectations of these activities are view in a linear fashion.
Expectations are organiz around a
strict relationship between inputs and outputs. A strong and optimistic belief is adopt; if we do X, then Y will follow. We work hard to “see” the future outcomes of our various initiatives and the “progress” that will be enjoy as a result of our expertise, creativity, energy, and hard work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way.
Our plans may lack anticipation of th
e complexity of implementation, availability of resources, timeliness of decisions, adoption of changes, and a plethora of other unanticipat conditions that cause the project to pause or alter realities. At best this creates disappointment and at worst fear. WHAT IF WE RECONSIDER AND THOUGHT OF PROGRESS IN TERMS OF “SPIRALS?” Many projects are burden by blame.
When something goes wrong (and it often
does), the event sparks the search for the guilty. This wastes time and energy on things like discriting, plotting, gossiping, and accusing rather than on the actions ne considering the new reality. What if we reconsider and thought of progress in terms of “spirals?” Is it possible that we would be less surpris or upset when we encounter obstacles that require “detours” or cause delays in our plans? It seems to me that some issues could be view simply as a curve in the “spiral of progress.