Think Before You Drink More Kool-Aid!

How re-thinking can increase your productivity

Thinking outside the box. Teaching old dogs new tricks. Professional development. These are all terms that emphasize the importance of change when looking for continued success. Being flexible and integrating new behaviours is how the very best remain on top in today’s fast-paced world.

“Drinking the Kool-Aid”—the concept of someone’s unquestioned acceptance of a behaviour or process without scrutiny—is what many companies encourage of their employees in order to fit into their culture and be productive. It’s a great way to promote teamwork and achieve results based on previous accomplishments. Yet it often stymies long term productivity.

Too Much Kool-Aid?

When I was at Nortel, I heard a story which exactly illustrated this point. A senior mentor told his new hire he needed to stay five years with Nortel to fully understand their complex procedures. However, if the new hire stayed more than eight years, the mentor said he’d become brainwashed with Nortel’s way of doing things. The Nortel “chip” would be implanted in his brain, making the new hire unable to think outside of the Nortel box, and therefore limit his creativity.

Recently, I encountered a similar issue. A corporate client was rolling out new company-wide expectations to increase overall productivity. My job was to help a set of high value employees—those who possessed important corporate history and deep client knowledge—adjust to these new demands. Unfortunately, this particular group of people had developed strategies and behaviours to meet expectations with minimal effort. Despite their potential, they used shortcuts, avoided crucial conversations and deflected arguments to make life as easy as possible. Their initial resistance was unbelievable as they truly felt their set ways offered the best options.

Both of the above examples underline the danger of becoming set in one’s ways. Over time, drinking too much “Kool-Aid” can make people behave without thinking. It can cause us to lose our ability to recognize different solutions or see different approaches. Because the world is constantly evolving, it’s important that we possess the flexibility to change as well, if we are to achieve continued success at what we do.

Your Flexible Self

Having the ability and desire to try different ways and methods is what I refer to as having a Flexible Self. The Resilience Alliance define resilience as the ability to navigate change efficiently, quickly and as painlessly as possible. How surprised I was when I took their resilience test and found my Flexible Self very low on the scale! Being the son of a Canadian diplomat, I moved around a lot, and believed that I was quite open to change.

After I got these results, my coach challenged me to do things differently for 30 days. I accepted and the experience was an eye opener. For 30 days, I questioned everything I did and how I did it. I discovered that change, even the little things, made me more efficient and achieve better results. For example, I went to a different store to pick up office supplies. Even though I didn’t know where everything was located, or was unfamiliar with the staff, I found the new store had more choices and better prices. What I thought would be a time waster was the exact opposite. Talk about false perception!!! I applied this challenge to many things and saw immediate results: better service, reduced costs and better state of mind! All in just 30 days.

The 30 Day Challenge

In some of my programs, I challenge participants to do things differently for one evening and am amazed at the results after just one day. Imagine what you can achieve in 30 days! My 30 day exercise impressed upon me the importance of re-thinking how I operate. Tried and true methods with constant tweaking can and will develop into higher levels of productivity. All it takes is a bit of flexibility.

Are you interested in learning at what level your Flexible Self exists? Are you willing to challenge yourself to do things differently? Drinking too much Kool-Aid is bad for your career. Try my challenge for 30 days and let me know how you are doing, I would love to talk about it over a free coaching session! To learn more about how you could win 6 free coaching sessions, click here. Until then…

Be amazing!