The father of a friend of mine used to buy up struggling businesses. Before buying them, he would run lots of analysis. When I asked him what he was looking for, he said, ‘Is it a good idea badly executed by poor management? Or is it a bad idea causing good management to struggle?’

In organisational change, sometimes people don’t like the idea of change. But sometimes people don’t like the messenger. Knowing which situation you are in is a critical diagnosis. The challenge for most change makers is that when we, the messenger, are the problem, can we keep our ego in check to step aside so someone else can be the messenger?

This doesn’t mean you no longer have a role to play, it is just different. People respond to people and therefore we might be the stumbling block. Sometimes it’s best for another face to front the show. And often the side benefit of this is that we multiple the number of change makers.

The choice is up to us.

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng