In our work lives when something isn’t working, we struggle with what part of the problem to tackle first. Do we start with cost reduction? What about morale? Or should we go for process improvements first? We pick the problem to work on, and depending on whether our plan makes sense, one of two things happens. First, we fail - and then we add “frustration” to our list of problems. Two, we succeed, and then some new problem pops out to replace the old. We cut 10% out of our budget, and our star performers leave in frustration because we sliced what they saw as a critical program. It’s as though the system we’re working on is an old inner tube. The moment we patch one hole and add pressure, another spot tears open. The point is that it’s possible to change everything at once. Seem far fetched? Zaffron and Logan make a compelling argument that executives spend their time and money adjusting the systems in which people operate rather than targeting people’s performance directly. When the three laws in this book are applied, performance transforms to a level far beyond what most people think is possible. These laws are:
1. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.
2. How a situation occurs arises from language. 3. Future - based language transforms how situations occur to people. Steve Zaffron has helped hundreds of companies envision and effectively implement major change and performance improvement. He presents a proven system for rallying all of an organization’s employees around a new vision, and more importantly, making it stick. The focus is on making such transformations permanent and repeatable, providing practical examples from clients such as Apple, Lockheed Martin, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, and many others.