Today we have the pleasure of welcoming a guest blogger, Mr. Richard McLaughlin, to the Monar Musings Blog.

Rich is a Sr. Learning Consultant with the Girls Scouts America. Prior to that he worked as an instructional designer at Arthur Andersen, A TQM Education Manager at Square D Company and a Manager of Organization Effectiveness at Baxter Healthcare Corp. He also worked as an independent OD consultant for 15 years. Rich lives with his wife and 2 sons in the Princeton area of New Jersey.

The other day I was chatting with a client who was asking me to help make some edits to a leadership training program that needed some final clean-up.  When I asked her when she needed it done by, she said, “It’s not so important when, it just needs to be perfect.”  I remember pausing because I thought that was such an odd word to throw in there.  But, having some history with her, I’m pretty sure it was code for “don’t let anything blow back on me if this doesn’t go off without a hitch.”

What also made the comment surreal, and somewhat ludicrous, was my own worldview and experiences that say any program involving human interaction and choice is bound to have things “go wrong”, i.e. things that happen that the designers of the program don’t expect or want.  I chose in that moment not to question the request, but it got me thinking about the subtle (and not so subtle) messages people send about how neat and orderly things should unfold.  That thinking is at odds with most everything we know about how innovation and change take place inside an organization.  It is not a neat and orderly process, but quite messy and full of two steps forward, one step back experimentation.

Lately, it seems leaders from all manner of organizations are talking about how their organization needs to risk, innovate more and be willing to “embrace mistakes.”  Unfortunately, we still have a fair amount of people who don’t understand what that looks like behaviorally and end up doing and saying things that, instead, often squelch people’s inclinations to go ahead and “try something.”  I have no easy answers to reconciling these mixed messages we’re all too familiar with, but here are some things to remember if you want to travel the natural trial, error and learning approach inside your own organization:

1. Don’t ask for upper management approval/buy-in before setting up a small “test” of your idea.  You’re bound to run into someone who wants “proof of concept” beforehand (another oxymoron that makes no sense)
2. Run your pilot/test with a small customer segment, under the radar and make sure you manage expectations about potential outcomes.  Not asking for permission first can be risky politically, but if you keep it small enough and approach customers you have a strong relationship with, they will be more patient with the inevitable hiccups that come with experimenting and won’t trash your idea before giving it a chance.
3. Use the positive customer response to your test to make the case for expanding your idea.  Don’t expect an internal champion to back it on faith (see point 1)
4. Know that no matter how well your test goes, people at all levels will take shots at it because they’ve made careers on finding potential pitfalls.  Give them a sincere, “thanks for your input” and continue moving your idea forward.

The old adage is worth repeating…Never let pursuit of “perfect” get in the way of reaching the “very good.”