Optimizers and innovators speak two different
languages. Optimizers speak the language
of reliability, and use terms that emphasize the importance of consistency with
past practices, whereas innovators speak the language of validity, and use
terms that emphasize the potential of future practices. As a result, they fail to understand one another and this misunderstanding leads to disagreements when, in reality,
they may actually agree.
Learning to speak another person’s language means changing
your behavior to accommodate them, or at the very least listening with an open mind and attempting to understand rather than rectify their perspective.
Optimizers are inherently opposed to changing their behavior, are entrenched in their beliefs, and cannot
be expected to learn the language of the innovator. And so, an innovator must learn to speak the
language of the optimizer, and should be more open to doing so because he is
characterized by a willingness to change and accommodate.
The key to communicating with optimizers is in understanding
that their motivation is based on fear:
they immediately fear anything that is unfamiliar and will not put much
effort into attempting to understand it.
As a result the typical conversational pattern of the optimizer is
nay-saying: they point out the problems with a proposal and have no suggestion
of how to solve them.
And so, the proposal of any change must begin in the context
that is familiar, before considering improvements or deviations from current
practices. One excellent tool is analogy: to describe an unknown concept in
terms of something that is already known.
The innovator will acknowledge that he understands what is presently
being done and why things are thus before suggesting a change, and then
emphasizing the way in which the new method will still do the things that the
old one does. This helps the optimizer
to overcome his resistance to the changes.
It is a serious mistake to attempt to enlighten them –
nothing new can be proposed except in context of what is already known. One must pay homage to the old ways, consider
that the optimizer views any change to the status quo to be a threat to his comfortable
routine. He cannot be sold on dramatic
changes, but may be titrated to minor changes if they are presented as
improvements or enhancements on the current ways.
In this way, radical changes can be introduced slowly, and
it will take many years to get done what might have been accomplished in a few
months – but so long as the optimizer is in a position to prevent change, it
would be impossible to accomplish the goal in any amount of time. So it is a slower and less efficient
approach to innovation, but it may be the only route to evolution when working
within a change-averse culture.
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