Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

The last few days, or weeks, or years, I have been reminded of this phrase as I continue to try and make change, improve that around me, make a difference, especially in the lives of the youth of America, and I have come to realize that this is not isolated, or specific to one place, and it is not just in one facet of my life, but it seems in all.

Change is difficult, change is not easy in any way, and NOBODY likes change when you come right down to it, and especially change that is forced upon them.  I am a teacher, a coach, a consultant, a businessman and many other things, and no matter the scenario, change is always met with resistance.

The best example I can give you is when a forklift driver at a very large food manufacturer once tried to run me over in the finished goods warehouse!!  A union forklift driver by the way.  Why, because we were there to make change.  I believe, as did all of my colleagues and our client believe, that this was positive change, make the warehouse faster, improve flow through, increase the total capacity of the warehouse by 13 %, automate the location identification, but nonetheless I had to do an ole with a forklift.

I am writing this tonight because it needs to be written.  I am writing this tonight because the past few days have been very specific to this phrase, and I am writing tonight to try and get all of us to think about which of these things we are doing, or should be doing.  I am also writing here and not on my FB page, and especially not on the team's FB page because these are my thoughts and views, and no one else's specifically.

To me this is simple.  There are rules in every job.  Very few of us get to set those rules, just like very few of us get to make or change laws.  There is then the job we are supposed to do, most often within these rules, or guidelines, and then there is a little thing I like to call COMMON SENSE!!  I am not saying people should break rules, and I am not saying that all organizations should not have processes and procedures people need to follow, if this were not true we as a society would live in total anarchy.  What I am saying is that every once in a while it is OK to make sure that we are not being just a little too literal!!

So my message to all the SHEEP of the world, especially those that make a habit out of using rules and regulations to police other in organizations and wind up being significant and constant road blocks to any real change, or true success, usually for others is:

Lead, follow, or get out of the way!!  Please stop simply standing in the way of all those that are trying to make change, do better at what they do, grow personally and as an organization, and just get the hell out of the way and let great be great!!

Another way of saying it is you are not part of the solution, you are part of the PROBLEM!!

Thank you again for getting this far with me.