Deckplate Leadership

There Are No Visionaries November 27, 2008

…At least they are rare. I say this because one of the things that a Deckplate Leader must learn and accept as they grow is that everything is cyclical. Every once in a while someone will come up with this great plan or idea. But the old timers will be able to see that this idea is not grand, or new, or earth shattering. They will tell you that it’s been done before. It doesn’t mean that it is bad to bring back those systems, processes, traditions, and customs that worked in the past but for one reason or another went away. But realize that if you’ve thought if something, then it’s been thought of before and/or is being thought about by a lot of other people. It is extremely rare to find someone that is a true visionary.

When we realize that we are more than likely not visionary we tend to think we are, we can then begin to focus on true process improvement and create sustainable changes and not change for the sake of change.  We will not discount those ideas or systems that we inheret as we climb up the ladder and therfore didn’t create ourselves, and instead we will seek to understand why things are the way they are and continue where our predessesors left off.

Change For The Sake of Change

I have come to call these things that people do “pet projects”. These are programs or changes that are made by somebody who believes themselves to be a visionary. They are sometimes good ideas, but will ultimately fail because they either don’t fall in line with the organizations mission, function, or task, or they fail because they are pushed by one person who contains the knowledge required to make the pet project work. When said person leaves, the pet project dies. This is change for the sake of change. Pet projects.

Sustainable Change

This is the kind of change that we should all be striving for as Deckplate Leaders. This is the kind of change that will endure long after the Deckplate Leader has gone. This involves cultural change, teaching, developing work ethic and pride in service. I connect this with being like pushing a boat down the river. You do the leg work. You develop the foundation and get the boat in motion. And you may even initiate the current that takes the boat downstream. But you never get to see it through to the end. When you make those changes in your workplace or organization, by establishing good foundations, instituting the appropriate policies in manageable chunks and then training your replacements, you establish change that cannot be derailed. Your replacement will have no choice but to continue where you left off because it will be in line with your organization’s mission, vision and goals and it will be sustainable by the overall knoweledge of the workforce.

So, I am not a visionary. You are probably not one either. But, we do have the experience and maturity that will guide us to make good decisions, keep those processes that work and improve on them, and eliminate those pet projects that are created by single points of failure.