There is a particular kind of conversation that goes like this: Someone has a long list of things that need to change in their business. They know it’s a lot to ask of their staff. When you suggest that maybe the list is too ambitious to tackle all at once, they say, “But this is only a fraction of what I could have asked for.”
I understand the logic. I do not agree with the logic. Here’s why, in two analogies:
The five-hour sitting problem
Imagine you’ve been sitting at your desk for five hours. You finally stand up, and your body makes its feelings known immediately. Now compare that to standing up after twenty minutes. Same movement, very different experience.
Organizations — and the people in them — work in a similar way. A team that has been doing things the same way for years, even decades, has essentially been sitting still. That doesn’t mean change isn’t needed. It might mean it’s urgently needed. But urgency doesn’t change physiology. You still have to ease into movement, or you’re going to hurt something.
The longer things have stayed the same, the more carefully change needs to be introduced — not because your team can’t handle it, but because sustained change requires buy-in, and buy-in requires trust, and trust takes time to build. Dropping ten changes on a team that hasn’t navigated one in years is not bold leadership. It’s a pulled muscle.
The shoe closet problem
Now imagine your closet has room for two new pairs of shoes. You buy five. When someone points out that five doesn’t fit, you say, “But I could have bought ten!”
This is not a defense. The closet does not care how many shoes you didn’t buy. It has room for two, and you bought five, and now three pairs of shoes are living on the floor.
This is a capacity issue, and it doesn’t just apply to closets. If your team can meaningfully absorb and implement two changes at once, asking for five doesn’t become reasonable just because you had a list of twenty. The existence of a larger wish list doesn’t expand anyone’s capacity to execute.
So what do you do with the list?
You keep it. The list is valuable — it tells you where you’re headed. But you treat it like a health professional would treat a patient who needs to overhaul their diet, start exercising, quit smoking, and cut back on drinking. No responsible professional says, “Great, let’s do all of that simultaneously.” They say: pick one thing, build that habit, then move to the next. Not because the other things don’t matter, but because trying to change everything at once is the fastest way to change nothing.
Start with the change that will have the most impact, or the one that will be easiest to win. Let your team experience what successful change feels like. Then go back to the list.
What’s one change you’ve been wanting to make in your business that you keep putting off because the whole list feels overwhelming? Let me know in the comments!