This week I’ve been introduced to a writer I had not read before. She is the late Donella H. Meadows and was a scholar in the area of living systems. She made the statement, “Before you charge in to make things better, pay attention to the value of what’s already there.” This serves as a terrific reminder for all of us who lead organizations, and the people within them, that in our zeal to fix all that might be wrong in an organization, department, or system, it is wise to first take a moment to assess what practices are actually working well, before we start breaking things! I’ve observed how some leaders, while fully sincere in their desire to do things well, will do the proverbial “throwing out the baby with the bath water.” Of course, the intention is to make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time, but sometimes the speed of change causes us to miss the fact that even the most dysfunctional an organization may be, they most likely have a few things that are done well, even excellently. By not pausing to step back from the situation and take a broader view, we can end up doing more harm in the short run which then makes the long run an even bigger challenge.
I love the stories of the U.S. space program and how they overcame great odds in the pursuit of exploring the possibilities that exist outside our atmosphere. One of the lessons that can be applied to the above consideration of assessment comes from the Apollo 13 mission, which went terribly wrong. The account is that soon after the explosion which scuttled the mission, the director asked a simple question, “What is still working on the spacecraft?” Suddenly, the engineers, flight crew, and the astronauts had to deal with survival, without the luxury of saying “Okay, we’ll get it right next time.” They couldn’t “throw out the baby,” so to speak. In order to bring the crew home, they had to know what systems they could still count on. If they had failed to do this simple assessment, they might have missed the very detail that brought three men home alive.
It’s the same in our organizations and in our families. Sometimes things go unexpectedly and terribly wrong. Sometimes organizations need drastic measures to turn them around from a season of decline. But the answer isn’t to just start throwing things out in hope of fixing the problems. The first step must be to ask, “What is still working?”
As a leader, be willing to pause long enough to ask that question, then stabilize the situation around whatever is working, strong, and can contribute to a positive future. Failing to do so may lead to more problems, and time and energy spent cleaning up a bigger mess than which you began. As Meadows stated, “pay attention to the value of what’s already there.”
Lead well.