Letting Go
Letting Go of Old Ideas to Thrive and Grow
When was the last time you tried something new? How did it make you feel? If you’re adventurous, you probably felt thrilled. If you’re fearful, you are probably still wondering if the experience was worth the risk. So it is with organizations. Adventurous (or proactive) organizations thrive; the fearful (or reactive) survive — just barely.
Individuals (and organizations) that cannot let go of “dead ideas” are doomed to failure. Think about how many processes your organization manages every day. How many of these processes are preventing you and your staff from being maximally productive? Why aren’t the processes updated? Is it because everyone is so overworked that there is no time to address the issue?
If there is no time now to address the issue, then when? Constantly relegating issues to the back burner is like clinging to the old ways, hoping they will magically reinvent themselves. These old ways are nothing more than dead ideas. And there is no place for dead ideas in productive lives.
The sad news is that this way of thinking does not confine itself to individuals or the executive boardroom. Governments also think this way. This inability to let go of tired thinking is decaying everyone and everything. That said, the new woke way of thinking is certainly much worse because it comes at the expense of productivity — it leads to conflict and decay.
As I write this, I consider the “wokeness” of the Canadian government, plunging society ever deeper into identifying with a staunch social justice at the expense of social justice. It’s ironic at best because the more woke one is, the more they experience and inflict cancellation of common sense. When one loses society’s common sense, we all feel the pain.
Even the Canadian Library and Archives has today stated that they will be purging websites deemed “offensive” — deemed offensive to whom? And how is it that someone’s opinion is now writing (or re-writing) actual history? If we lose historical facts, we lose the very essence of how we got to where we find ourselves today. But I digress.
Much has been written about change management because change is difficult to accomplish (think about changing just one of your habits — it takes at least three months of solid effort to build a new habit). But what seems to be coming through in organizations is that all employees need to be on board for change. This participation requires changing old ways of thinking (but not to the extreme of wokeness or cancel culture).
So how do we let go of old ways of thinking, of dead ideas? According to Matt Miller,[1] there are three steps.
1. Identify the ideas that matter.
Since we can’t boil the ocean, pick the projects or ideas that will really make a profoundly positive impact on your organization or your life. These ideas will typically be strategic — those “sacred cow” ideas that no one has dared question until now. But please, lose the woke and cancel culture mentality — it contributes nothing to ideas that matter.
2. Understand each dead idea’s “story.”
This understanding comes down to identifying the root cause. How did this process become so entrenched with sub-processes? Why did this process seem to make sense in the first place? By understanding the root of the idea, it’s much easier to discern an action for change. Thus, canceling history from societies and organizations is the wrong approach no matter how you defend that stance.
3. Reach for new ways of thinking.
Don’t dismiss ideas because they seem counterintuitive (perhaps the woke and cancel culture should give this a think). If they seem counterintuitive, this may signify how skewed our thinking has become; entrenched with only one way of doing things. Brainstorm. Look at possibilities. By reaching for new ways of thinking, we expand our minds.
In the end, we owe it to ourselves to continuously improve and grow. By shedding old ways of doing things and inventing and implementing new growth concepts, we all thrive. Don’t get stuck in an outdated paradigm just because it’s been there all along.
But also, don’t plunge yourself into trendy ways of thinking — they are called trends for a reason. They won’t last but the damage they leave behind may take a lifetime to repair.
[1] For more information, check out Matt Miller’s 2009 book: The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity.
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