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Momentum.

In an earlier post, I made the claim that most people are lazy.  And of course, that’s not intended to be presented in a negative way; I simply believe that no one wants to work harder at something than they have to.

In thinking more about this concept, I realized that there is an important example that further exemplifies this point, but is far more relevant than examples presented earlier.

Several months ago, I finished reading Tim Brown’s Change by Design – an interesting book on design thinking inspired primarily by Brown’s experience at IDEO where he is CEO and President.

There is an excerpt from the text where he describes his “barometer” for supporting new projects spearheaded by IDEO staff:

“… when I receive a cautiously worded memo asking for permission to do something, I find myself becoming equally cautious.  But when I am ambushed in the parking lot by a group of hyperactive people falling all over one another to tell me about the unbelievably cool project they are working on, their energy inflects me and my antennae go way, way up.  Some of these projects will go wrong.  Energy will be wasted (whatever that means) and money will be lost (we know exactly what that means).”

Browns’ comments immediately resonated with me.

In the past, I found myself taking the former route for initiatives that seemed significant enough to warrant some sort of “approval” (whatever that really means).  Not surprisingly, many of these ideas were put to rest before they even began.  Why does this happen?

Remember, most people (not all) don’t want to think – *especially* for ideas that are foreign or new.  As innocent as it may seem, the very act of asking for approval means that you aren’t sure whether your idea is a good one – and if you aren’t sure, your colleagues / manager / etc. is likely to be even less certain of your idea and the “difficulty meter” starts to rise.  Negative momentum is a likely outcome.

If you have an idea for something that you believe in, don’t ask for permission to do it.  99.9% of the time, no one is going to stop you. If you have energy and enthusiasm, you’ll already have momentum on your side.  And it’s much more difficult to stop something while it’s moving than keep it stationary.