One Change At A Time

Or: how to drive change in your business without confusing the hell out of everyone

I travel and give keynote speeches at large events a lot. When I do, I’m usually not the only person on stage giving some meaningful advice or mindset adjustments to people.

Before my keynote, I often like to play a game with the audience. The game is dual-purposed.

First, it helps me take attention and command of the room in a way that’s engaging.

More importantly it’s to make a very important point in a way that’s undeniable.

The Rules

The rules are simple. Two people pair up and study each other. I then ask them to turn around. I then call out a number and they must change that number’s many things about their appearance and try to get the other person to find them.

The pair wins if both sides identify all of the changes.

The Tee Up

I always do a demonstration of this game to tee up the point. I pick two people out of the audience and run through the instructions.

When they turn around I call out “ONE”. One change. And every time, they will both get it and “win”.

The Delivery

Then I ask everyone to stand up and pick a partner. After running through the instructions one more time, I have them turn around.

Then I call out “TEN”. Ten changes.

After about 10 seconds of utter and guaranteed chaos, I tell them all to sit down and let them know they all lost.

The Point

Then I delivery the point.

“You will be exposed to 10 great ideas that can change your business this weekend. But if you take them all home and implement them all at once, your staff and your customers will feel like you just did… CONFUSED. One change at a time; Create a backlog of changes to execute over time.”

How often are you confusing the fuck out of your customers by trying to do too much, too soon?