To Change, Or Not to Change

When Jedi Master Yoda tried to get Luke to raise his X-Wing fighter out of the swamp, he counseled the struggling apprentice, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

To which Luke replied, "Okay, I'll try."

Then Yoda's 900 years of experience corrected him, "No!  Try not!  Do, or do not. There is no try."

There have been many times in my career where I have been faced with a decision: reject change and keep pressing forward, or embrace it and sprint ahead.  The former is much easier to do.  It's familiar.  There's little perceived risk.  The latter is much more daunting.  It's risky.  There will be resistance.  You may even get rejected. But it's also worth it.

Technology is moving at an unprecedented pace today.  It seems like every day, there are new tools at our fingertips that can help us work better, work faster, and be more productive.  However, it is a deluge that must be tempered and carefully sifted through.  Sometimes we can get caught up chasing shiny objects rather than truly embracing those things that will propel us forward and upward.  We follow trends that instead of clarifying and focusing our process and our product, simply muddy the waters and complicate the situation.  I've done this before many times, going down roads that seemed to be paved in the gold promises of efficiency and productivity, only to realize that it caused me nothing but confusion and frustration.  Yet I have also been down unknown, risky roads that in the end, paid huge dividends.  There is an important nugget of truth in this - you never know unless you try, and trying requires doing.  No amount of study, focus groups, or meetings will ever yield results unless something is eventually tried and tested.  Hours of endless meetings over months discussing how we can solve problems will never yield results unless we are truly willing to act.  

Too often I have seen people not only refuse to change, but refuse to even entertain the idea of trying.  They feel that they don't need the change. They think it will only slow them down (I'll discuss that in another post).  They feel that it's not worth it.  They feel that they have learned what needs to be learned.  They fight the change with everything they have.  This is a flawed approach, especially in the exponential technology growth of today.  It will only limit them.  We can never stop improving, never stop learning, and sometimes that means letting go of the way we have always done it so that we can take our work to the next step.  It means trying new things, even if it means that we are no longer the "superstar".  And sometimes it is in the failures of doing that teaches us what the real solution is.

Why did Luke need to "unlearn what [he had] learned"?  Was it because his method was wrong?  Was it because he had been taught improperly?  Or was it simply because what he had learned was no longer as relevant as it used to be - that it was now superseded by something better - something that he was going to have to learn from the ground up?  Something that, if he did learn, would allow him to do much greater things - things he never knew or considered he could do.

Change is a hard thing to do.  It's uncomfortable.  It requires work and effort.  It makes us start at the beginning again and work our way down an unknown road.  Yet today, change is not only a good idea, it is necessary to a business and an individual's relevance.  When change is implemented for the right reasons and in the right way, it is always worth it.