Growth Happens Best in Practice, Process Becomes Secondary

Over the last two years at Northwest we have been trying some new things. We process a new idea or direction to death, get a plan together, get people on board and then move ahead. What we have noticed, and I am sure you have too, is that you only learn how this new things is actually going to work once you begin working at it. Plan all you want, once you start doing things, you will find out what really needs to happen. You will find out what made sense on paper but doesn’t work with real people. You will see areas you never thought to address that need to be added and find out some of your ideals were too ideal and need to be dropped. Things that are too complicated to be repeated will fall out and things that are simple will hang on. So process all you want on the front end but realize that it is only in the practice that the real growth takes place. Things get refined in and through action, not just with paper and pencil in the drawing room. Once you get to work, then you will have time to process what you are actually doing rather than just what you think could happen.