Change is No Picnic
Making a change is difficult. Tiptoeing into the shallow end of change and hoping for a positive outcome never works. To be successful, one often has to commit, run at the cliff, and jump out as far as possible.
“Let’s see how this goes.”
When trying something new, I’ve found that the quickest way to ensure failure is to take the middling, tepid attitude of, “let’s just see how this goes.”
If change is the needed outcome, you’re going to have to fight for it. Everyone resists change. People will fight and resist you when you suggest a new course.
In marketing, we test everything: the message, the creative, the UX, and on and on. And, while there are benefits to relentless testing, we often over-rely on what those tests infer and believe the data should provide a direction. Testing modalities then become a sort of design by committee, and that’s just not the purpose for which it is supposed to be used. Most marketers hope for an incrementally better outcome from a known process or tool they understand rather than a bold new approach.
The advantages of a bold new approach are often only clear at first to you and not your team. Lean into that belief and remember that no amount of testing would have ever given us Mt Rushmore, a Magellan, or a man on the moon.
Sometimes you have to make the right decision that everybody hates.
