I cannot be accused of any “bah, humbug.” I like holidays too much for that. What I mean when I say “keep tradition in the holidays and not in the workplace” is similar to the adage of “watch out for sacred cows at work.” Traditions are the things we do at home during the holidays because we have always done them that way. Our Grandma always made chili for New Year’s Eve and, so, we ALWAYS had chili for New Year’s Eve.

At our house growing up, we opened presents on Christmas Eve and only the stocking was there on Christmas morning. Boy, was it a shocker and a change when we started following my husband’s family tradition of opening presents Christmas morning. But now I have to admit – I am so glad we do it Christmas morning and have started an entire series of new traditions. Change is good!

But beware of Corporate Traditions. Corporate rhythms are good: reviews happen January and July; budgets are finished in November; etc. I am talking about the “traditions” that keep you from improving things. Doing things a certain way “because we have always done it that way.” Those are scary traditions. They keep us from looking at what we do objectively and finding new improvements. If managers have always written reviews and then discussed them with employees, why not suggest that employees first provide their perspective of the past review period as a foundation for the managers to work from? Why should managers start from scratch on all their direct reports, when each direct report has something they want to say in participation? Change things up. Get a different view.

Seek out the things that you do because they are simply traditions within the business. These are the first items to consider for change. Understand WHY something is done and you will know if it needs to be improved. I challenge you to challenge traditions. It feels good!

Cheers,
Lois

Posted in Innovation
Tags: improvements