Are you “in love” with your plans for new school year? – SCN Encourager

Are you attracted to “exciting moments” or are you truly building for the long term?

There’s value in doing both, you know.Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 7.25.02 PM

Consider how futurist David Zach explained the difference between trends and fads in the SCN April Lunchinar.

“The difference between a trend and a fad has to do with the duration of time,” Zach said. “A trend is more drawn out over time. A trend can be identified by a growth of momentum and staying power as it moves forward in time.”

He said that while you don’t want to make the mistake of over-committing time, money, or organizational change to an initiative grounded in a fad, every fad often does indeed contain a certain specialness.

“Think of a fad as a moment in time, one that doesn’t have the extended time frame associated with a trend,” he explained. “Most fads are actually sparked by an emotional expression of some kind. So you could say a fad is like a sudden burst… almost like a brief moment of heart.”

Screen Shot 2016-06-26 at 8.14.01 PMI was reminded of these words when I heard John Kotter, the author of “Leading Change” in a podcast over the weekend.

Kotter’s a professor at the Harvard Business School and his book is still a New York Times best seller.

Normally I try to lay low over the weekend.

But I was so down by the Tigers losing three straight to the Indians, I attempted to shrug off the pain by trying to connect some Zach-to-Kotter dots in my typical convoluted way.

(It was either this or powerwash the patio.)

Sounding eerily similar to Zach, I heard Kotter make this comment.

“Be clear about whether your initiative is designed for the future or intended as a momentary event,” he said. “And what determines the difference is the commitment you make to a sustainability plan, your deadlines and benchmarks, and your willingness to re-assess and re-visit.”

As you can tell, I had quite the weekend!

Bad baseball by the Tigers.
Trends by Zach.
Fads by Zach.
New Initiatives by Kotter.
Key Differentiators by Kotter.

And that was about it.

I only wish Zach and Kotter weren’t good communicators.

It would’ve been nice had they demanded more of my think-time.

As it was, I still had to get out out back and finish the patio!

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