The power of YET

The man was wearing a pink shirt, reddish polka-dot shorts and had 3 watches on his left arm. Together with a woman, even more colorful. She looked like the impersonation of a peacock. If you goto Amsterdam, be sure to wear feathers in your hair. Even after 25 years of traveling around the world I do still feel like the farmer boy visiting the big city of Amsterdam. He was telling a story about how he advised Sergio on how to make mayonnaise. I looked it up, he was referring to Sergio Herman, the Michelin star cook from Oud Sluis and the Jane in Antwerp. Fascinating how this guy was talking so everyone could hear him in a mile radius. I stopped paying attention when he moved on to the topic of how he had the personal cell# from one millionaire friend. The important people one can see live in Amsterdam.

In the street I saw a lot of cyclists. They all shared the same behavior. Apparently all suicidal. Headset on, loud music, watching the screen of their phone. Using whatsapp while trying to get hit by a car. The colorful woman was also only paying attention to her phone. NonStop. She was typing like crazy. Scrolling down, checking, swiping. She never heard a word of what the man was saying, totally isolated in her little offline online world. At one point she angrily stood up, started making a call, and shouted at someone: I posted that already 5 minutes ago, why didn’t you like it! I only have 1 like now! It makes me look stupid! Totally upset. The need for a shot of instant gratification. The man didn’t pay attention to her at all, he just kept on talking about mayonniase. Amsterdam, city folks, gotta love them.

I was early for my meeting and was sitting on this typical Amsterdam terrace. My friend showed up, we ordered lunch. Fascinating guy, made a 180 U turn in his live. Changed from having a rather typical british alcohol infused lifestyle to running marathons. Impressive transformation. He wrote about it, his first book. Long story on the transformation, the new healthy lifestyle, the running, the shoes. The early runs in Amsterdam, the success. Impressive. Somewhere hidden in the book the other more important message. Sorry mom, sorry my ex wife. Sorry for not being there for you. Sorry my two kids, I made a mess, I hope you forgive me. Kids, please give me a second chance. And the typical british understated way of telling his wife how much he loves her, how she is the centre of his universe. Great read.

We talked about work. We both started in a new role earlier this year. I talked about the brilliant Trifork team I’m privileged to be part of, the exciting new world of data, AI, Machine learning and how framing all the new tech possibilities in a business mindset started to make all the difference. He talked about the new accounts he was running. And then he said something interesting. How come I had all the patience needed, years even, to change my lifestyle, and the same time I am so impatient about changes at work. We are doing great, but we can do some much better! Interesting: changes in business nowadays also need to be instant, instant gratification, instant transformation.

In my work with Digital Transformation I keep repeating what it actual is. Digital as in all the technology options we now have, only 9% of the equation and Transformation, the other 91%, as in people having to transform. Digital Transformation is really about people transformation. We can have all the tech we want, not using it, just sticking to old ways of working and nothing will change. I have learned over time, as my hair turned grey and started to disappear, that the bigger the transformation, the smaller the steps you take. Make small changes every day, hang in there, and see the transformation slowly unfold. There simply is no instant transformation. Reminds me of a company I worked for where the email one morning read: starting tomorrow we all will be customer focussed. Right.

So what is the trick to help people to make small changes, one step at the time. Combine a clear goal, point B, with small incremental steps. The bigger the transformation, the smaller the steps. Start at point A, today, make small changes, see the improvement and repeat. In my work as coach and lector I teach my students this one trick. The power of YET. Whenever you make a statement, and you are impatient, frustrated, just add the word yet. I can’t do this or I can’t do this yet. This doesn’t work or this doesn’t work yet. It doesn't make sense or it doesn't make sense yet. The power of yet adds time, breathing space, focus on point B while taking small steps. Transformation is about getting started, and taking small steps, every day.

My brilliant Trifork AI-Machine Learning team did some great work for customers recently and they discovered really powerful new options. Fascinating stuff. In various projects, centered around Axon open source software, event sourcing, domain driven design, CQRS and other cool buzzwords they figured out how to best use the Axon event store that allows for 20-20 hindsight to be used for incredible predictions using machine learning. Very powerfull new options, impressive new business benefits to be achieved for potential all Axon users. We packaged the new approach in a service, ML4Axon and then marketing asked us to write a brochure. That task was on me and I promised to have it done in 2 days. And applied the power of yet. Created some visuals, added some text, shared with the team. And every time one of them said: it’s not good enough, I don't like the visuals, or statements along those lines I just added the word yet. It’s not good enough yet. Start with nothing, make small steps, review, change, transform, improve. Rinse and repeat. And suddenly after just 2 days we had a very impressive brochure, describing all the benefits for Axon users to use our ml4axon approach, by taking small steps. As my mentor Bert used to say: trust the system. Trust the power of yet.

The power of YET, it works, you might want to try it yourself. Amazing results to be expected.

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