This blog is for all of the people who are caught in the middle … who say “The margin of difference is all well and good if you have enlightened leadership … but what if you don’t?” What if you are in the middle of an organization that is anything but inspired … and thinks that what they are doing is just fine … and managers who send the clear message to anyone who doesn’t agree … “don’t rock the boat.” Or what if you are working for a manager who seems to have no clue or curiosity about what an inspired organization could be? Or what if you work for an organization that seems to always be embarking on change initiatives that never get any traction?
If this is where you and your organization seem to be living then all of this stuff about the margin of difference just makes you more frustrated. You say “Yeah … sure … where? … In what organization? … Show me one just one that has made this kind of transition.”
Caught in the middle goes to the core of questions like “What do I do when I am stuck in a job that I hate but that I have to stay with because I need the money?”
Where do you start? First of all, you don’t start by saying “I’ve got to change this place … or person” … or by saying “This place will never change so why try?” You start by taking a line from Gandhi: Be the change you want to create. You use the frustration to put yourself at the center of the possibility of change.
This means that you use the most powerful leverage you have available: how you think about three things: the outcomes you are working to achieve, the processes you put into practice , and how you think about the people and organization that surrounds you. I am going to explore this more specifically in future blog posts, but first I’d like to share what it is like when you make your thinking process the center of your attention. I am going to borrow a page from sports to illustrate what I am leading up to.
Even If you don’t play tennis or golf or baseball, you probably know what is meant by the “sweet spot”. Remember that a sweet spot is a tiny area of a golf club or tennis racket or baseball bat that produces a great shift in accuracy and velocity. It sounds and feels differently to the observer and the hitter. Finding the sweet spot, in itself, creates great satisfaction beyond what it does to the ball.
There is a version of the sweet spot in every area of activity. It is easy to see it in sports: nailing a land in gymnastics or landing a perfect jump in skating. But it also occurs in everything you do … coaching, dancing, sailing, parenting, being with friends, and producing work products and relationships. No matter what you are up to, the sweet spot is equivalent to what Tiger Woods seems to mean when he says that he is “on his game.”
In other words, whether it is applied to relationships, the outcomes of your work or the processes you use, a sweet spot is landing the best version of each challenge. And you know you have nailed it because it produces a unique experience.
Hitting the sweet spot is very satisfying. Once you have hit the sweet spot in any area of activity, you want to repeat it. And it doesn’t matter whether you are in the middle, at the top, or the bottom of your organization’s hierarchy … reaching for the sweet spot is something you can achieve … it not only gives you great satisfaction in the achieving of it but it always produces an outcome that will be at the margin of difference. It even begins to shift the system of which you are a part. You begin to become the change you wanted to create and in the process change what goes on around you.
This blog is based on the forthcoming book: The Margin of Difference: Moving from Good Enough to Inspired Organizations.