If your job is anything like the jobs I've had, you're familiar with the concept of administrivia—perhaps not by definition, but most definitely through the emotional responses administrivia causes ... because doing administrative work that is trivial, uninteresting, and time-consuming does nothing but cause emotional responses.
One of my favorite coping strategies for dealing with the effects of administrivia is asking the hypothetical question, "How would you it do differently?"
Asking yourself “How would you do it differently?” (at least) turns the trivial, uninteresting, and time-consuming into an opportunity for learning.
So, amidst a recent change management administrivia exercise, I returned to a set of questions I borrowed from Seth Godin's book "This Is Marketing" during a previous bout with administrivia blues.
He calls it a simple marketing worksheet. I think it works just as well for thinking about a change you're facilitating, especially since the first explicit change question doesn’t come until after six (!) questions meant to focus your thinking about the prospects of the change. I share it here with the hope that it can help you, too:
- Who’s it for?
- What’s it for?
- What is the worldview of the audience you’re seeking to reach?
- What are they afraid of?
- What story will you tell?
- Is it true?
- What change are you seeking to make?
- How will it change their status?
- How will you reach the early adopters?
- Why will they tell their friends?
- What will they tell their friends?
- Where’s the network effect that will propel this forward?
- What asset are you building?
- Are you proud of it?
